#my A level plans are politics history and religion

[not-poignant]

Hi hi :D Hope you are having a good day!

I was rereading UtB and I got to chap 24 and there was this part:

"‘Jesus,’ Dr Gary said."

And at first I was like 'huuuhuuhu I wonder if Jesus is an omega, beta, or alspha in the Underline-verse'

But then I was like 'gaaaasp, what if he was a peak alpha!' And I started thinking about the influence of peak alphas on things like religion, as religious figures. I know they're very rare, but I also remember Augus saying that it should be illegal for Ash to be a lawyer as a peak alpha. So then I started thinking about how would peak alphas would impact religion. Or cults! Or royalty! Or politics! Or just the course of history in general! Maybe they would stay the fuck away from it, or maybe they would crave having that control? I spent a very enjoyable hour daydreaming about it, which felt a bit like splashing around in the paddling pool of someone elses worldbuilding, which was maybe a bit rude lol, sorry if it was. And maybe Gary saying 'jesus' was just a throwaway expletive, and you didn't even mean much by it, but I was wondering about your thoughts! <<33

Hi anon!

This is something I've thought of. It's hilarious to me to low-key imagine Jesus in this world as an omega, though I haven't invested too much thought into it because I don't really care much for religion in general.

But generally speaking I liked the conflict of omegas being treated as second-class citizens and how that gets justified against Jesus being an omega etc. And then I was like 'I don't care about this enough to keep thinking about it, it's just amusing to me.' And that's about where I'm at. Enough to be sacrilegious and not enough to have fleshed it out further because I'm very idc about that stuff.

So then I started thinking about how would peak alphas would impact religion. Or cults! Or royalty! Or politics! Or just the course of history in general! Maybe they would stay the fuck away from it, or maybe they would crave having that control?

Oh no they totally crave that control. A tiny percentage of the world's population is peak alphas but they're overwhelmingly likely to be found in positions of power.

Tbh this is... intentional. I was trying to think of how to account for the absolute fucking monsters that end up as all-powerful billionaires in the world. Utter twats like Elon Musk, who you just know are too pathological to have hold of that much money, and yet no one on the planet is holding him (or the Zuck etc.) accountable.

And to me it gave me some comfort in my omegaverse, to imagine these asshats as being peak alphas. People who attain their power not because the governments have no regulations to stop them (which they should), but because they just have too much ardolphogen influence / power for anyone to stop them from getting this powerful.

And just like it's a huge issue in our world, it's a huge issue in this world too. The millionaires but especially the billionaires in this world are likely to be peak alphas. Generally speaking it's frowned upon for them to become Presidents and Prime Ministers, but they are found in other levels of court and parliament, as royalty, etc. They're less likely to make cults and more likely to go into business where they can control a lot of people at once.

It is a huge, huge issue. And it was planned for as part of the dystopia in advance.

Peak alphas crave controlling communities, not individuals. With the exception of Augus, the peak alphas we meet all have significant control over large amounts of people, whether it's Crielle and Fenwy Laboratories, or Temsen and Gary and Hillview, etc.

They don't need intimate relationships or love, because they form a bond to a much larger group. Historically that would have worked for small micro-communities - one person drawn to controlling and looking after the community while alphas were drawn to omegas. But in a globalised society and runaway exploitation re: billionaires, it's just become completely dystopian and it's partly how you end up with a world that favours alphas so much in the first place.

[ghosting-medium]

・❥・ Southwest ˗ˏˋ꒰ 🦅 ꒱

Information by me

Moodboard:

Looks Like:

Credit: On the left: Teddy on X Link:https://twitter.com/planarbindings/status/1244663947715887104 | On the right: Rohan-Lockhart Link:https://www.deviantart.com/rohan-lockhart/art/Khin-by-Merwild-668153325

Hm his eyes are darker piercing they look right into your soul much like west's, he has light hair almost white I'm feeling, more masc leaning but seems to be more fluid and very assured in his orientations, "a scholarly soul" I'm getting that they rule more over intellectual activities and learning. Like a hawk, they have sharp eyes, determined but headstrong. He’s more stoic, and reserved on the surface level than South or Southeast is. he’s not one to let go of this “poker face” easily, he won’t surrender. 

Residence/Palace:

It’s not as much a Palace, as it is a library room. More of a battle, and archival space. It’s personal though, he has a an area for others to meet and adjourn almost. Like a private strategic battle area/office that doubles as a personal archive and library. Then a more open space for birds, reptiles, and air spirits to spend time and commune with each other. Almost like a roman forum in a way, meant for sharing ideas, cultural beliefs (cultural diffusion), sharing political ideas, sharing religions, information, but also just spending time and eating. It can be a very energized space, or it’s bare without people per the request of Southwest. He takes on the more private aspect like West, but enjoys company like South. Prioritizing knowledge, and acquiring it. He likes adventure, but if well thoroughly planned out and organized. Has to be well executed, and do its purpose.

Office/Archival/Personal: It has dark deep red, and brown shades. He’s very selective about who can enter, it’s not uncommon for him to ask people per say. But it’s not on the everyday occasion that people visit the actual office. The forum is fine and dandy but the office is special. High bookshelves, with a section for notebooks of his own adventures and his own history and personal feelings.

Correspondences:

Days of the Week:

Wednesday - the day of Mercury, the messenger of communication, curiosity, and creativity. Practical matters, continue working through your work throughout the week. Thoughts, and words flow more smoothly, so Southwest does a lot of diplomatic matters on Wednesday. He encourages those who may feel overwhelmed in the week, to declutter and reorganize. Set yourself up for success and not failure.

Saturn - the planet of structure and discipline. A methodical and responsible energy , catch up on your personal to-do list. You typically have more free time to run errands, to socialize, to think what needs to be done today to relax for tomorrow (Sunday). Refresh your calendar for the week ahead, plan out days to do certain tasks. This is the day of doing, but also strategizing. Based on needs it can also be more of a relaxed day. Do as what you see fit. To work with Southwest’s energy more than I would say connect to his more serious/stoic energy and complete tasks.

Special Days:

4, 8, 10

Fall Months - September to November

Autumnal Equinox

Solar eclipses

Draconids Meteor Shower - October 7th

Orionids Meteor Shower - October 21, 22

Taurus Meteor Shower - November 4,5

Elements:

Air - Primary

Fire - Secondary

Numbers:

4, 8, 10 - Based off my personal associations

4 - Means something is complete or it needs to become complete, joining numbers together to create some form of wholeness. Completion/coming to completion, connection, corrections, orders, working alongside others to achieve goals, teamwork, community, collaboration

8 - remember to continue with the movement of the past numbers. This isn’t the end of the cycle itself, however you’re reaching the end. The lucky but unlucky number. Don’t be afraid of subconscious, transformation, and the occult. Movement, transformation, spiritual rebirth, the ability to swiftly rise above any obstacles or challenges.

10 - Representing completion and wholeness, the cyclical nature of life, constant changes that occur. 10 is one and zero tied together so it takes the numerology from 1 and amplifies it in a new way. This is a call back almost to Southwest’s creativity, and ingenuity. If the number 1 is about now beginnings, and 10 is about completion it shows the cycles. All the effort made together to get to your final destination. In my associations 0 is a neutral option, it means divine intervention in some cases. With Southwest it might be the divine intervention of either West or South to learn something from them.

Colors:

Warm earth tones, bright pops of red and yellow. Reds in Central America symbolize passion and emotion, extensively combined with white for religious practices. The Fellowship is modeled after Catholic Hierarchies, so it seems fit that these two colors come into play for him as well. Orange is a color associated with him as well, a primary color in Nature for Central and South America. 

Planet:

Mercury, Mars, Saturn

Mercury - Use your voice to speak your ideas, strategize with your mind. Communicate to those around you for ease of success (know who you are speaking to, and trust those in your inner circle). Intellect and awareness are important with diplomacy, war, and knowledge of all sorts. Southwest isn’t about quick wit (although he can be fast on his feet in terms of wit and thinking), he prefers long drawn out philosophical plans. He priorities his rationality, paired with his practicality to execute long term plans with ease.

Mars - the action planet, passion and determination are what this planet is about. Within he realm of Southwest though, it really ties back to the Roman God of Mars. He had ties to War, but also Agriculture a more forgotten trait about Mars. he make sit a point to have more hidden beneath the surface. Southwest’s energy and presence are noted within rooms, even if he’s not speaking. He doesn’t per say command attention, his presence is attention grabbing. He walks with confidence, which makes sense given how long he might think about his plans (His words are also thought carefully, and worded intentionally). Southwest encourages though afraid to meet their challenges with intent, and plan to overcome; to not quit and to overcome by any means necessary.

Saturn - the disciplined energy of this planet makes itself apparent within Southwest. Responsibility, and promise are important to Southwest, he almost takes like them an oath. He might be suggesting to make contracts or oaths with him, think them out carefully and don’t forget to contract yourself a let out/a way out. He takes his word, and your word seriously. Additionally, managing and organizing time is important under Saturn, knowing how much time and energy will be spent on one task is important. It dictates how the rest of the day might pan out around you. Time has limitations, there are 24 hours within a day, restrictions might have to come since time is of the essence. Another aspect of Saturn is life lessons, what might find you in a past life in this one and how to overcome it. There is a more of a traditional aspect to Southwest, especially if more Chronological epithet.

Zodiac Signs:

Capricorn, Aries, Taurus, Virgo

Animals:

Hawk - Harris, Coopers, Ferruginous

Dorado

Marlin

Tuna

Bushmaster

Fer-de-lance

Armadillo

Monarch Butterfly

Bark Scorpion

Basilisk Lizard

Bearded Dragon

Box Turtle

Bullfrog

Bullsnake

Capybara

Porcupines

Desert Tortoise

Desert Iguana

Roadrunner

Jackrabbit

Cactus Wrens

Quail

Plants, Fruits, Flora:

Saguaro cactus

Poppy

Desert-willow

Barrel cactus

Agave

Desert primrose

Sunflower

Juniper

Yucca

Wild Bergamot

Yerba De La Negrita

Mountain Rose

Monstera

Peacock Calathea

Anthurium

Mexican Honeysuckle

Essential oils/incense:

Sandalwood

Bergamont

Rosemary

Juniper

Crystals:

Carnelian

Sardonyx

Topaz

Zoisite

Sunstone

Iolite

Sodalite

Citrine

Peridot

Serpentine

Green Onyx

Bloodstone

Fire Agate

Indigo Gabbro

Garnet

Onyx

Smoky Quartz

Obsidian

Black Tourmaline

Blue Sapphire

Mooksite Jasper

Red Jasper

Amber

Hematite

Divination associations:

Tarot:

Strength Judgement Justice 7 of Wands 2 of Swords Knight of Swords

Ruling, Domain:

Intellect, Strategy, Communication, Thoughts, Perseverance, Conviction, Self-Discipline, Patience, Control, Equality, Honor, Diplomacy, Curiosity, Learning, Acquiring Knowledge (not so much the application), Improvement, Spiritual Rebirth, Facing fears, Endurance

Family:

West - Sister

History, Mythology:

Epithets:

The Hawk

The Philosophical

The Acquirer of Knowledge

The Chronological

Keen Hawk

Strong and unyielding

The Confident

The Strategical

Offerings & Devotional Acts:

Listening to music:

More Dark Academia, Lo-fi would work as well. Not anything with intense lyrics though as it would distract from focusing

Taking care of cacti

Making a personal office, or place for you to work

Reading academic texts / reading in general

Researching something you’re interested in, devoting that time to research

Challenging yourself in academics

Playing strategy games and spending more time planning than acting

Play monopoly, catan, battleship, risk, clue, scrabble, poker

Worship his sibling, West

Watching the sun rise, and set

Set your phone wallpaper, or pc wallpaper to be the Southwest US, Central America

Sticking to to-do lists daily, practicing more self-discipline

Sticking to goals and promises to yourself and others

Keep watch of time, appreciate your time

Speak out to legal authorities in your area if they’re doing an injustice

Speak out, and advocate for areas you’re interested in, mainly advocating for education for Climate Change

Wear sunscreen

Open the curtains to let the sun in

Journal, keep notebooks of fun facts you know, knowledge you get

Join a debate team

Look at world issues critically, become educated (don’t take news outlets at face value)

Either practice, or become open-minded

Veiling

Be curious

Step outside your comfort zone

Candle Wax Readings

Fire Scrying - Divination

Altar Suggestions:

Cloth - in his colors Candles in his colors Suncatchers Hawk imagery Sun imagery Sun Water Books Notebooks Candle Wax Feathers Sand Terrariums Rocks Cacti Pressed flowers Have the altar be facing Southwest Wands, Swords (for element associations) Old to-do lists Keep the altar organized as you can Oil Diffuser Lemon, Bergamont

That is all the documented information we have on Southwest currently 🦅

Signing off, Ghost ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

[bronzewool]

Dune is ruining my life.

I have not been able to stop thinking about the series ever since I stumbled across the sequel in the library. And since it's like 1/3 of the length of the original, I picked it up for some light reading just to see if there was something I was missing.

I am frustrated by how much I desperately want to learn more about this world, but I don't wanna read it in this format. The Worldbuilding is fine. The characters are fine. The relationships are fine. The history is fine. The conflict is fine.

I just hate the writing.

Dune Messiah does the same bloody thing in the first book, where it announces the motivations of each character and spoils many plot twists that would have been shocking to learn for yourself. The first chapter even starts with our four central antagonists in the same room talking about how they're going to overthrow House Atreides. So we know who to look out for before Paul even meets them, not that it matters since they're all so bloody incompetent, their plan to overthrow Paul is both way too complicated and laughably straight forward.

It's been 12 years since the first book, Paul got his revenge on the man who killed his father, overthrew the Emperor, and made himself the new Emperor with a devout Fremen army and a monopoly on the Spice extraction.

Except things aren't so perfect. Paul, who is cursed with clairvoyance and has seen the future for all humanity, is trying to avoid the extinction of the human race but, in doing so, has made himself the villain.

"At a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions-"

His followers see him as a god and have become a cult who will cut down all non-believers in his name. He has brought water and wealth to Arrakis but is playing the long game, destroying the lives of billions of innocent people for the sake of trillions not even born yet. He's a hard character to root for when you've spent an entire book watching him struggle to earn his happy ending, only to then watch him commit mass genocide in the name of the greater good.

And the book doesn't tell you straight out the gate that Paul is now evil, but let's you digest the consequences of all his decisions. For example, Paul has full control over the Spice trade, a life-extending drug that most citizens have been exposed to at some point. The spice rightfully belongs to the people of Arrakis (even though Paul himself is not a native), but one of the drawbacks to ingesting spice is that withdrawal eventually leads to death. Everyone who takes one step on Arrakis can never leave or must depend on frequent shipments of the stuff in order to keep on living. We are never privy to the innerworkings of the shipment itself or how much it costs, but I couldn't help but compare the dependency on Spice to insulin, especially when Paul learns that someone has attempted to take one of the sandworms to manufacture their own supply of spice on another desert planet.

The book has great moments like that, but it's spliced with chapters of people sitting in a room talking about power, diplomancy, conspiracy, religion, fate, legacy, guilt. And going over those conversations with a Sherlock Holmes level of deduction to uncover hidden meanings, and talking in different rooms with different people.

There is a lot of talking in this book when the plot can be cut down to: Paul's Consort Princess (that he forced into a political marriage right after dethroning her father) has teamed up with the old reverend Mother from the first book to remove Paul from power with the help of a shapeshifter "face dancer" and a space guild navigator who is invisible to the powers of foresight. The Princess secretly drugs Chani, Paul's lover from the first book, with a contraceptive in order to stop her bearing any future heirs. The Guild Navigator presents an artificial human created from the remains Duncan Idaho, who died in the previous book, as a gift to the Emperor. And the shapeshifter has taken on the form of a Fremen.

The innerworkings of their plan are kept hidden from the reader, but the execution is lacklustre when the entire point of the book is that Paul can't lose. Chani is moved back to Arrakis to see a doctor, so the princess can't keep drugging her. The reverand Mother is apprehended early on in the book. Paul knows the resurrected Duncan is a trap meant to be his undoing, and any tension with the shapeshifter is pointless as Paul sees right through his deception, but plays along anyway.

Much like my frustration with the first book, there isn't a lot of narrative tension when it comes to the plot. The only real suprises in the book are, how the conspiracy plans to use Duncan to take down Paul, and near the end when Chani finally gives birth and Paul did not predict her bearing twins as he only ever saw the future of their daughter, and not a twin son who is hidden from Paul's powers and might change the future Paul fought so hard to achieve.

I both enjoy learning about Dune and hate reading it. To the point I'd rather just read the wiki articles. But I can't seem to get it out of my head and hate myself for not enjoying it more when it is so beloved by so many people I respect, and I dont know of its just because I'm not nearly smart enough to fully understand it

[skamiikaze]

200 Hour Polish Update

*Caveat: I had been studying Polish since around 2020 using mostly traditional methods. If you look, I’ve been in this server for a while so I, in my infinite stupidity, was lazy and didn’t start doing a lot of immersion until this year (despite being pretty obsessed with learning Polish… ik weird ass logic). Which so far, has been 200 hours. Realistically, I don’t know how many hours my total progress indicates but ehh. Before this year my study has mostly just been reading about grammar and reading from textbooks.

What has my immersion consisted of?

watching videos on YouTube (without subs)

listening to podcasts

How much a day / how do I track?

      200 minutes a day (3.3 hrs). At the start I did 60 minutes (1 hr), and then I moved up to 100 minutes (1.6 hrs)

      I track everything with a pen and small notebook. I think it’s more satisfying (and easier for me) to track this way. It boosted my motivation to see pages fill up. I much prefer physical tracking to digital. Personal preference, this is neither good nor efficient so don’t do this lol.

What I’m glad I did / progress I made.

      I started off this year already with a decent level. I could understand basic conversations but sometimes I would have a hard time catching words I knew just because I hardly did any listening. 200 hrs later, I have no trouble at all with that. I can follow more complex lines of thought and discussions. I will say though, I still struggle with stories. I think if I focus on that type of media that will sort itself out. My main focus was just to get good at the subjects I enjoy. I don’t like TV / Movies / fiction at all, so I mostly avoided it. I started off the year with watching My Life as a Teenage Robot, Hilda, and a little Kid Cosmic (never finished it) but I didn’t really want to continue that since I was getting bored. Once I switched to videos and podcasts about subjects I enjoy (history, religion, politics) I found it much easier to go on for long periods of time.

      I now find it much easier to write / think in Polish. My writing is not that great still, but I feel like I’ve made progress. I plan to focus on output more in the future, but I think that I will focus on improving my writing after I start reading more. I need to see good examples of the written word before making serious attempts to replicate it.

      I did no look ups (with some exceptions but for the most part it was exceedingly rare, and when I did it was monolingual). I’m glad I made that choice. Before one of my main barriers to immersion was all of the Anki fiddling and sentence mining / look ups. I am someone who has a hard time getting in the habit of doing things, and a lot of that was a huge barrier to entry for me. I said screw it, and just sat down and watched stuff. Nothing more, nothing less. I think this is one of the best choices I’ve ever made. Besides the executive function matter, I think overall this was more beneficial than If I had managed to do Anki and look ups. I know myself, I would’ve poured over the nuances of a certain word out of context in a dictionary entry. Which in the grand scheme of things, is a massive waste of time. That time is much better spent engaging with content. The word’s I’m „ready to learn” will come to me so to speak. I strongly recommend this strategy. It’s a little uncomfortable at first, but in the long run it’s worth it.

What do I regret?

      Not starting sooner (duh). Seriously though, the main lesson I Learned was to not be so slow to change. I am a very change resistant person, I really struggle to change my routine / try something different. This really has shown me that just getting started is very very worth it. Even if the first few days suck.

      Trying to read books too early. I don’t know why I tried to do this. I don’t particularly enjoy reading in English, so I’m not sure why I tried to force myself to read in Polish, which is obviously harder. My reading era in Polish shall come someday, but I’m not going to try it until I can get into it in English first. If It’s a chore to do I won’t bother with it right now. One of my goals is to read Sienkiewicz but that’s a far off goal. I will let you all know when I get there.

Previous and current level (self assessed, take with a grain of salt)

2C/3 in refold terms (current)

Level of Understanding (before) A2-B1

Level of Output (before) terrible, I shudder at the thought

Level of Understanding (current) B2

Level of Output (current) B1, needs work of course…

Statistics

Start: Sat. Jan 7th

End: Tue. Apr 11th

Jan: 2061 min / 34.4 hrs Feb: 2149 min / 35.9 hrs Mar: 5220 min / 87 hrs Apr: 2459 min / 41 hrs

What now?

      I am going to take a temporary break from Polish to focus on Czech. I will be moving to Prague in the fall so I want to get a bit of a head start (even though I will be learning Czech there anyway as part of my degree program but I plan to use English as little as possible when I get there.) I want to do about 100 hours in Czech and then return to Polish (rather, incorporate both into my routine). Partly because I want to get through the beginner stages of Czech as quickly as possible (with minimal Polish interference) and partly because I want to see how my Polish will fair after a break. Will it improve? Get worse? Stay the same? Remains to be seen. I will provide an update after I do said 100 hours in Czech. The nature of that update again, remains to be seen.

A few words of likely generic advice...

      Don’t be hard on yourself. I know this is almost a cliché at this point, but being overly critical of myself stunted my progress. I was afraid to challenge myself out of fear that I was not ready / I wasn’t good enough.

      Don’t try to optimize everything. It’s impossible. You wont be able to keep perfect records of everything, you wont be able to track every second, you won’t be able to exactly know where you’re at level wise. It doesn’t matter where you are right now, just keep moving forward. Even if you aren’t that far now, if you keep moving you’ll be a lot further along than if you hadn’t moved at all.

Dziękuję serdecznie za uwagę! Czołem ;-)

[katana-the-autobot]

THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat. Long post!

MUN NAME: Kawa

AGE: 25+

CONTACT: Asks, IMs, Discord (given via IM)

CHARACTER(S): Katana (and Flicker on main blog @/flicker-bot)

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Transformers. (Known medias can be found in the mun section within Rules page - but other TF medias and crossovers work, too!)

FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR: Apart from individual threads, there’s no set AUs at the moment.

MY LANGUAGE(S): English, Finnish (but rping only in English here)

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY  / SCIENCE FICTION / HORROR / WESTERN  / ROMANCE / THRILLER / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / EROTIC(?) / CRIME / MYTHOLOGY / CLASSIC / HISTORY / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / ANCIENT / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD/ APOCALYPTIC / GODS / SPORT / MUSIC / SCIENCE / FIGHTS / ANGST / SMUT / DRAMA / ETC.

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: ONE-LINER / 1 PARA / 2 PARA / 3+ PARA / NOVELLA / ALL

ASKS CAN BE SENT BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS. 

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?: YES / NO / OCCASIONALLY  - only by Mutuals?:  YES / NO

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / CASUAL / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?: YES / NO (These are alien robots we’re talking about so I think we can safely throw some of the realism out the window, but I tend to do plenty of research while rping topics that can be researched easily (e.g. what kind of injury character gets from X). However, I don’t expect the other side to do any research since rping is first and foremost for fun.)

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT (when I’m not sleep deprived or busy lol)

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ WEEKS / MONTHS / YEARS (May vary based on how busy or tired I am, but usually I’m quick to respond)

I’M OKAY INTERACTING WITH: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / A RELATIVE OF MY CHARACTER (AN OC) (if planned together) / DUPLICATES / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / SELF-INSERTS / PEOPLE WITH NO AU VERSE FOR MY FANDOM / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING:

Plotting: IMs, Discord

RP: RP memes, asks, IMs

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER?: I admit that I have much easier time interacting with characters that I already know in at least some level, which makes it easier for me to jump right into things with canon characters. So, while I do enjoy plotting no matter what character I’m going to interact with, it becomes especially important with OCs I don’t know that well yet. If there’s little to no information about your character, it’s even more important to me that you’re partaking in the plotting and voicing your opinions, explaining what you think would work best with your OC etc. It’s completely okay if your OC is not super fleshed out yet, but it can become a problem if I feel like I don’t have anything concrete to work with and am doing all the work coming up with a plot.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?: I understand if the other side is having trouble coming up with plot ideas, especially when we’re only starting, and since I’m often brimming with ideas, I’m happy to share them and help out with the plot! However, if this keeps going even after our characters have started to get familiar with each other, it can get really tiring and I may start to lose my motivation for our RP.

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?: I’d say it’s something from between. I try to come up with ideas (preferably multiple ones) and share them with the other side to see if anything piques their interest. If I’m having trouble coming up with anything, I try to at least offer what I think would work with my OC and see if it helps the other side to decide what we could try.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?:      YES / NO / DEPENDS - AND WHY?: If it’s a loose thread that doesn’t have much to do with the main plot, I understand if the other side simply forgets it, doesn’t feel it anymore etc and wants to drop it. However, if it’s the main thread, I��d like to hear what caused them to drop the thread and if there’s something I should do differently or something new they want to try instead. I won’t get mad about dropping threads so please don’t hesitate to reach out to me!

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: If it’s a loose/unplanned thread and I’m not vibing it anymore, I may drop it.

WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. I try to let them know, especially if it’s the only thing we had going on and don’t have any other threads left. Sometimes I may be so overwhelmed I fail to inform the other side about dropping the thread and I apologize for that.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO. - AND WHY?: I’m not expecting us to communicate about every single thing, but I feel like there should be a possibility to reach out to the other side when needed. A lot of things can be solved by communication and I’d rather talk things out than be left or leave the other side in confusion.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: Yes, as long as it comes from a place of wanting to help the other side to improve rather than using it as an excuse to spread hate. Anon hate is never a valid option.

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: For fun!!!

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS: Nothing in particular, or rather, this kind of depends on who I’m RPing with.

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE: All-out smut, some really dark themes.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: I tend to be pretty flexible so nothing comes to mind right now!

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?: Almost any kind of character, as long as they’re responsive!

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?: When the character is so cool/distant/badass/etc. that they offer nothing to work with and turn down any attempt to interact with them. That’s no fun in a long run.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I feel like I’m flexible which makes it easy to match the other side’s length/writing style/etc, and I always try to include something in my reply the other side can react to, which hopefully makes it easier to reply.

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I’m sure it’s sometimes painfully apparent that English isn’t my first language ;;; There’s also been times when I’ve tried to describe things to the point of overexplaining, like include time and place and weather and absolutely everything (a relic of the time when I still RPd in text forums), but I’ve slowly unlearned the habit to write longer replies just because.

DO YOU RP SMUT?: YES / NO / DEPENDS (it can be hinted that some bedroom action has taken place, as long as we don’t actually RP it in detail)

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN, FADE TO BLACK?: YES / NO.

WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?

ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?: YES / NO / IT DEPENDS. If we’re talking about any kind of relationships, yes, they’re where my main motivation lies and character/relationship development is very important to me. However, it doesn’t have to necessarily be a romantic one (although I definitely want to have some romantic ships going on eventually)

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO / IT DEPENDS

DO YOU USE READ MORE?: YES (for non-RP stuff) / NO (for RP stuff - I’m trimming threads)

ARE YOU: MULTI-SHIP / SINGLE-SHIP / DUAL-SHIP  —  MULTIVERSE / SINGLEVERSE

WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: The dynamics and what characters bring out of each other!

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. It’s difficult for me to jump straight into “already in relationship” stage, especially if I don’t know the other character that well. I need some time to feel our characters out and get a better sense of what their dynamic is like. However, it’s something we can plan in advance so it’s not an absolute ‘no’!

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: Katana is a serious and dedicated femme, yet she’s open to teamwork and not so cold or proud that she’d push others away which hopefully makes it easier to interact with her! She’s gone through a lot, yet she’s also overcome stuff, and it allows her to relate to others who have experienced traumatic events without being overly angsty or pessimistic about life in general. She also has other sides to her, although it takes some effort to draw them out of her, so there’s hopefully a lot of room for character and relationship development.

WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?: I don’t have a lot of experience about RPing with Katana yet so no opinions here.

WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, WHAT IS THEIR GOAL?: Katana thinks all is fine and dandy now, but she doesn’t realize that she’s not happy. She’s been to the Earth for a few years now, but she has not really made it her home or built her life there yet.

WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?: Are they an Autobot or a Decepticon, or a neutral? Are they even Cybertronian? Are they dangerous? Are they in danger? Katana approaches new faces in a very practical and cautious manner until she’s found some answers.

WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?: Loyalty, bravery, honesty, being true to yourself.

WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?: While Katana doesn’t care to do small talk, she’ll gladly listen to whatever others want to talk about. She’s the type who may remain silent for hours unless someone addresses her. When she does initiate a conversation, it tends to be about something practical.

WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?: Small talk like chatting about weather.

DID THEY EVER GO THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?: Yes.

WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?: Katana has been on the brink of death several times, but she’s survived so far, partly because she’s survivor by nature and partly because she’s driven by her loyalty to Autobots. If she was to be expelled from Autobots, betrayed by them or something similar, she might not have the determination to keep going on.

IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?: Katana has mixed feelings about bots who change sides, but she’s not sure if she necessarily hates them. Other than that, no.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES (hopefully) / NO. BEST WAY TO APPROACH THEM?: Have something to do with them. When there’s some action they can both participate in, their interaction doesn’t rely completely on talking.

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: Pet the cat :3

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

TAGGED: stole it uwu

TAGGING: anyone who wants to do it (although it is kind of lengthy)

[starryflix]

Helping others (somewhat)

The 21st of November, 2022

I think that one of the funniest things is that I have been trying to write down my own experiences in multiple different ways. I suck at keeping a journal, yet recite my own lived experiences many times when giving advice. Somewhere I realised that all of the things I have wished to achieve in my life all come down to one thing; I want to help people.

I often do this by using my own personal experience. Which isn't always exactly ideal. (then again my high school friends once jokingly made a religion out of my advice, shrine and all)

Who is 9 years old and thinks about becoming a politician and only decides not to do so because 12 year old you saw the threat level rise significantly for people in that job? Perhaps it was an early sign. My back-up plan was to become a teacher, again for the same reasons as becoming a politician. Helping people and passing down my own knowledge. Inspiring people the way my teachers did in my school years. In a way I guess that becoming a teacher is still my back-up, something I do really want to do if nothing else comes along my path. (and along the way I also very much realized politicians are a pain in the ass and politics can do more harm than good very often. I have seen my own rights be debated enough times to know this by now.)

Coming back on helping people though, it still rings very true. I might be doing an academic study currently, but it's in the faculty of humanities and has a lot to do with people and their relations. The name of the study is very non-saying, perhaps the most non-saying names of all time, but to explain the basics of the study it comes down to globalization. You study globalization from four different disciplines. Economics (the most boring part), politics, history and culture. While doing so you focus on a region and you learn a language that comes along with your region. This is all smashed into a three year long bachelor. So it is a lot, and not the easiest thing to explain but well, I seem to enjoy it. (Semester 1 has been fine thus far, and my grades all good... that was a challenge in the past.)

I think this study stuck to me when I came across it on accident due to the mix of knowledge and disciplines. But also because the curriculum loans itself for understanding humans, human relations and some of the fundamental parts of modern-day society.

Even though the study doesn't really sound it, it still is in line with that one thing I have weirdly always wished to do. I think I can guess where it comes from but I am going to let you make the hypothesis yourself.

Was it hard to learn how to balance caring for myself and for others? yes. Did I make a lot of mistakes and did I hurt people by actually not taking care of myself? Also yes. But I learned from them and I can balance them a lot easier. It will always be a learning curve, and even now I don't have this down, but nothing can be perfect.

I feel like this entire entry is ridiculously disjointed and chaotic but I think that the main point I am trying to make is that I sometimes remember the silly little dream I have (that I likely won't pursue) of having my own little café that is totally meant and made to be a safe space. The cafe is entirely symbolic for my dreams at this point in time. Something I missed a large part of my own life was a space where I was fully accepted and able to experiment with who I am.

That's all I want to do; learn more so I can make the world, or at least provide the few people in my immediate surroundings with, a bit more of a beautiful and safe zone. A place to cry, to laugh and where people feel comfortable enough to tell their stories.

To inspire others and to share experiences. To support one another and to learn from each other.

[bouncybrain]

CharcterHub Exploration: Worlds

I briefly mentioned this in the last post about the social zones of the site. Worlds (Story Worlds) are a way to help organize your characters and stories by worlds, and/or by location within that world. This is going to be a lot more helpful if you're more into worldbuilding than character-building. Since I'm only going over this one creation aspect of the site on desktop, you're getting pictures again!

There's a few other things I'll probably go over in other posts, since I wrote this while waiting for events to unlock, so either stay tuned or block the characterhub tag since I use them all on these posts.

Reminder: CharacterHub offers two subscription models that unlock more options during creation and such, but I am not subscribed. These are all the base, free experience.

When you hit the "create" button, you get a lot of options to work with. The second one listed is "Story World" and the one we're going through together.

While I have a lot of OCs, I haven't uploaded enough interconnected ones that need a world to keep track of the worldbuilding (despite my love of worldbuilding), so I'm not going to actually publish one, but I'll walk through all the steps and options here.

First, the creation page:

The full list of options are as follows, verbatim as I can get, in the order of the drop-down list (* marks default):

{General}

Species

Culture

Magic

Location

Economy*

Factions

Climate*

Religion*

{Countries And Continents}

Number Of Continents

Countries And Nations In The World

Relationships Between Countries And Nations

Political Dynamics And Stability

Level Of Urbanization

Aspects Of Popularity Or Pride

Societal Structure And Hierarchy

Climate And Harshness

Natural Resources

Sources Of Energy

Weapons

Physical Anomalies

Faith And Religion

Food

Holidays And Celebrations

Laws And Authority

Systems Of Education

Clothes And Fashion*

Popular Jobs And Forms Of Work

Popular Forms Of Entertainment

Available Technologies And Advancement

{Cultural Identity And Heritage}

Motto

Fun Facts

Genre

Traditions And Rituals

Art And Aesthetics

Fashion And Apparel

Philosophical Schools

{Governance And Social Order}

Ruler

Laws And Authority

Justice System

Public Services And Utilities

Secret Societies

Propaganda And Information Control

Intelligence And Espionage

Guilds And Associations

Colonialism And Expansion

Social Mobility

{Technological And Magical Advancements}

Available Technologies And Advancement

Inventions And Innovations

Technological Constraints

Magic

{Economic And Resource Management}

Economy*

Economy And Trade

Resource Scarcity

Currency And Valuation

Environmental Conservation

{Historical And Temporal Context}

History And Lore

How Time Passes

Timekeeping And Calendars

Exploration And Discovery

Adventure And Quests

{Communication And Information}

Languages And Dialects

Communication Networks

Surveillance And Privacy

{Lifestyle And Social Dynamics}

Popular Jobs And Forms Of Work

Popular Forms Of Entertainment

Recreation And Sports

Tourism

Tourist Appeal

Festivals And Competitions

{Geopolitics And International Relations}

Diplomatic Relations

Relationships Between Countries And Nations

Political Dynamics And Stability

{Science Research And Exploration}

Science And Research

Space And Astronomy

Conflict And Resolution

{Urban And Environmental Planning}

Level Of Urbanization

Transportation Systems

Traffic

Characteristic In World Shape Or Form

To keep this post from also being an absolute fucking monster of a review of the site, I think this is a fantastic idea to have as well! While you can put your characters in folders to separate them, and put worldbuilding on those profiles, having the option to completely separate the universe your characters occupy is useful. Instead of having to go through and tweaking or dumping stuff unrelated directly to each character, you can just... edit the world itself.

I don't know if I'll upload characters who exist in a 'verse that requires worldbuilding to understand well, but if I do, I'll be using this.

Also, the extent of the free options is handy in realizing what you might be missing out on in the worldbuilding you've already done. Using every single one might be a little excessive, in my opinion, but having so many of them is great! One of the hardest parts of worldbuilding is knowing whether you've got enough detail, or if you're missing something in the middle of all your notes, so the clean UI and number of options is great.

I'd recommend CharacterHub on the worlds alone, honestly. And all the stuff in this post, again, is free. (5GB image storage aside.)

[cadenceventures]

May 6 - Asakusa

Today was our first full day in Tokyo. We visited Asakusa for a guided tour of the area and the Sensō-ji temple. It was really exciting to see this city come to life during the day. The subway on the way there was absolutely silent, and cleaner than I've ever seen on public transportation. Leading up to the temple were lots of little shops to look through and stands selling foods. It was very crowded but being part of the atmosphere was so surreal. After visiting the temple, a few of us got Udon at a local restaurant. It was our first real meal in japan and it lived up to all our expectations.

Adjusting to some of the social norms here has been difficult, as the expectation here is for everyone to be much quieter when in public, and I'm definitely all American when it comes to my usual decibel level of speaking. I know I'll get better at this with time, and it's definitely easy to follow that rule on public transport. I've met a great group of people so far and we're already beginning to make plans together for the coming weeks. It's been such an exciting day and it's made me feel so much more confident in my decision to have joined the trip.

Academic Reflection

We learned a lot from our readings about Japanese Buddhism and its history in the context of Japan's eras. I feel like the readings really helped me to better understand the sights of the day. Knowing the different sects and forms of Buddhism, as well as the place that those beings take in the lives of Japanese believers gave me a better understanding of the temple and its practices. Even the Buddha statues we viewed at the front gate made more sense in this context. I found it interesting that despite all the challenges Buddhism had to go through to maintain significance in Japan for all those years, it has continued to remain a venerated religion here.

Another important trip we made today was to the Edo Museum. I didn't know much about the history of Edo (now Tokyo) so I'm very glad I read about it the night prior to better enjoy the detail put into a recreation of an Edo block. I think that without knowing when this version of Tokyo existed, and what some of the political or social occurances were at the time, I would not be able to fully process the context of the scenery. I noticed how the building styles of the Edo period influenced even current architecture in Japan. I think understanding the past culture is so important to getting a full grasp of the current culture in Japan, so I was really happy to see some more traditional parts of Tokyo today.

[mineofilms]

Club Satan

This is a response about an article posted on my Facebook feed on an ‘after school Satan Club’ at a Memphis elementary school, and now at a local elementary school in my town for elementary school students. The article’s headline: “Satanic Temple plans ‘After School Satan Club’ at another elementary school…”

1st and foremost I do not support or favor any religion in general. If you ask me what I think happens when we die? That talk will be about 2.5 hours and using so many references, from science, to science fiction, fiction in general, philosophy, logic, critical thinking, sacred geometry, astrophysics, politics, numerology, etc. One or many wouldn’t even grasp most of these concepts at the beginner/novice level, let alone, understand the lack of general awareness that religion, in all its glory, is the number one killer of human beings in all the history of mankind. Not by predators, not by an asteroid strike in our distant past, not AIDS, not heart disease, drug addiction, cancer, the black plague, global wars or diabetes, hunger, lack of drinking water. Nope… Religion has killed more people than all these combined. So you will have to excuse my lack faith in religion as an ideology that benefits all of mankind. You will never see me say the opposite, ever…

It’s been suggested human beings have roughly been on Earth in our current form for around 300,000 years. While Christianity’s history is around 2,000 years old, give or take a few decades. That is a huge gap, over two orders of magnitude (2.18) older than the Christian faith. One can insert just about any history they would want with that gap of time. Plenty of time for interpretation, telling of stories that miss details or include details that never happened. The Bible very well could be the first science fiction novel ever written for all we know. Movies like; "Prince of Darkness," directed by John Carpenter in 1987, centers around a group of scientists investigating a mysterious cylinder filled with a pulsating green liquid discovered in an abandoned church. The film explores the notion that early humans misinterpreted profound forces as benevolent when, in reality, they embody darkness and destruction. As they study the liquid, they uncover disturbing revelations about its extraterrestrial origin and its connection to an ancient evil force that transcends time, space and reality as we know it. As the liquid is studied by the group, it is suggested that our ancestors, grappling with incomprehensible phenomena, crafted a narrative (Christianity) that skewed the reality of these entities. Portraying God as a symbol of life, love, and light rather than the “Anti-God,” a malevolent, primordial entity with the potential to bring about apocalyptic consequences. That we never know what this energy actually is, but it can only be described in Christian terms of “Satan’s Father” or the “Anti-God.” The “Anti-God” is not a being of life, light, and love but a force of death, darkness, and destruction, shedding light on the possibility that humanity's early interpretations were shaped by fear and misunderstanding rather than divine revelation. "Prince of Darkness" and other films that attempt to challenge viewers to reconsider established beliefs and contemplate the origins of religious narratives. That is just one example of how creativity and attempting to look at religion with an analytical mind over blindly accepting what is written as literal gospel/truth/facts.

In the article, the Satanic Temple clarifies its mission, “presenting itself as a non-theistic entity that interprets Satan as a metaphorical symbol, separate from the supernatural associations often assumed. The club's curriculum, contrary to misconceptions, focuses on science-based and inclusive activities, aiming to foster benevolence, empathy, critical thinking, problem-solving, creative expression, personal sovereignty, and compassion among participating children.” https://www.live5news.com/clubsatan

Just because the group says we do not teach about Satan in terms of religion doesn’t mean it isn’t about Satan. This one quote from the article destroys any credibility that the Temple may have had about what its mission and goals are with this club. I support the first amendment, but if we cannot have Jesus in public schools then there isn’t any room for Satan either. If a public school is gonna allow Christian-theme clubs in their school then based on the first amendment Satan should also have its say. The Jesus-Karens’ wanna cherry-pick when it is ok or not ok to break the law, as they always tend to look at the law as silly when compared to the laws in the Bible, which to me, is just as silly. These same people will openly break the law when it suits them and always point to the Bible as the one true law.

Now that is fine and dandy, but if we all have to follow the law, so do Jesus-Karens’.

The question of whether it is fundamentally wrong to teach religion of any kind, including topics like Jesus or Satan, in public schools:

• Separation of Church and State: Teaching religion in public schools “may be” seen as a violation of our 1st amendment rights as outlined in the constitution of the United States.

• Religious Diversity: Every individual in that school and every public school has their own personalized belief structure. It would be fundamentally wrong to choose one and make that the standard for everyone. Hence, why ALL separation of Church and State exists to begin with.

• Parental Rights: The responsibility for religious education lies with parents and religious institutions, not public schools. Public Schools across all of the United States has taken a bigger interest with our children the last decade or so. They have been fighting with lawmakers during this time attempting to gain rights’ to kids without their parents being notified. This subject can be a blog all by itself. Giving them free spaces to teach and practice “progressive” values, that are hardly progressive, in terms of progressing forward in a direction of enlightenment. However, what I see “progressives” doing isn’t going forward, which is what the word actually means. Instead, “progressivism” steers human thinking backward, under the pretense of moving forwards. Even if it is after school and 100% voluntary there is still pressure to promote these concepts and for kids to accept the invitation or be told “they are on the wrong side of history.” It is why Separation of Church and State and Religious Diversity above exist in the first place. This is the part I think the schools lack the most. There is pressure by people for them to help promote it and pressure for kids exposed to it to join. Where they are supposed to be spiritually safe…

• Focusing on Academics: Public schools are primarily institutions for academic education, and introducing religion diverts resources and time away from core subjects. How we can expect our kids to know Math, English, History if we have them confused about what comes after this life or not. Can kids be kids and worry about this garbage when they have real stress in their lives? My only real acceptation to the rule about religion in public schools is if religion is mention in Historical Context. I can give a pass on that, but that would be more for High School level kids learning about world history in a classroom for historical context. Not religion as the subject, but merely part of the story that is world history.

Parents shouldn’t have to be in this spot of being angry about this particular thing to begin with. When we send our kids to school. We trust they are safe: Mentally, Physically, Emotionally, Sexually and Spiritually. Let’s not forget the incident by the original Jesus-Karens in the 1980s when Al Gore and his wife tried to cancel Heavy Metal due to it promoting Satan and they lost, BIG, and were humiliated on live TV. When we buy a CD and it has the “Parental Advisory” sticker on it, that is their contribution to pop culture, gate keeping, and heavy metal.

If a school was a religious boarding school or something specific, a non-public school, then I’d get it why religion is in school, but public schools, na… I have no issue with some things about religion in schools like the pledge of allegiance and God being mentioned in it. I always interpreted the word “God” to mean “whatever creation myth one believes in,” and creation itself is a myth, not a fact but a myth. I believed this at 8-years-old.

I have three different categories for defining God and it is based on how we spell God. God (any and ALL Gods of religion) • GOD (The Universe itself is GOD, not a conscious being, just everything encompassed into one big thing called the Universe/GOD) • god (Sacred Geometry Spirit Energy, Nature, not necessarily a conscious entity).

The word “God” to me never meant solely the Christian God, just “god.” The pledge is fine how it is. As far as promoting Satan goes, I feel the same way. I joke about hailing Satan, but that is all it is, a joke. It is utterly ridiculous, just like thinking more than God just being an imaginary friend for grownups. I am actually making fun of Satan here not hating on Christian faith, specifically. I am a metalhead. Always have been. I never associated Satan worship with metal music, but there are subgenres of metal music that focuses on the worship of Satan and the destruction of all Catholicism. I think all faiths are part of the clown show. It doesn’t have a place in public schools, whatsoever, for just the few reasons I specified here. However, they probably are different for you and absolutely different for most other people.

I am an agnostic, which is just a fancy term for saying; "I do not possess the information to make an informed decision on whether or not the One-God-Creation-Myth is more than just a myth and if any of this is actually tangibly real in our reality." Agnostic is just saying we do not know enough to say God does or doesn’t exist so we just do not have a stance on it in the terms that believers and non-believers have their stance. By default both sides tends to label us as either believer or non-believer, which is why we are agnostic to begin with. Agnostics tend to not believe in binary information systems about reality.

That not everything is as simple as positive and negative…

“In the status quo of trial by social media; the facts have nothing to do with anything. No matter what you do, no matter what you prove, no matter what you dismiss, logical approach or common sense thought or thoughts about a topic, there is always going to be people on a keyboard that will project the reality that they would like, that most fits with what they want to believe and have that all based on hurt feelings and sentimental opinion on every issue. Every issue is split in half or binary nowadays. There are no winners in this and the lives that are directly affected by it will never be the same.” ~me, September. 2023.

Every topic is so polarizingly binary: yes/no, us/them, good/evil, right/wrong, left/right, zero/one, gay/straight, black/white, man/woman, Jew/Muslim, Life/Death. You get the idea. Sources are biased, especially ones from the great religions of the world, the legacy news media from both left/right sides. Both spin their takes as pandering of right/wrong vs what right/wrong actually are. Both sides always paint the other side as: wrong, bad, evil, while always labeling themselves as correct, good and just. In binary information systems both sides cannot be these things. They must be one or the latter, ALWAYS…

The great flaw I see here with Jesus/Satan in public schools is we cannot have one without the other. If you have pro-Jesus after school programs in public schools then one or many must allow the latter that same respect. I have written at length this year about binary information systems and how they formulate, shape, our opinions and positions in reality. They are not what they are supposed to be, but the point I am making here is in public schools both should not be allowed. I agree with most that Satanism is just as much a religious faction as Christianity is even though they are saying in the argument that they are “presenting itself as a non-theistic entity that interprets Satan as a metaphorical symbol, separate from the supernatural associations often assumed. The club's curriculum, contrary to misconceptions, focuses on science-based and inclusive activities, aiming to foster benevolence, empathy, critical thinking, problem-solving, creative expression, personal sovereignty, and compassion among participating children.”

If you are a Christian parent and you want to protect your children from teachings that go against your faith, the public school system would probably not be trustworthy places to safeguard those concepts for your children. The public school systems are working to strip rights from parents so they can teach your kids what “they” value, not what “you” value…

Should be noted that just because I personally loathe religion of any kind, I do not hate people for choosing a religion/faith. It is your entitled right to choose what you want to believe. My only, real, issue with any of it is the forcing the beliefs on everyone and shunning those that choose not to listen.

Religion, to me, are the original Karen's of civilization, but I am not going to trash my brothers/sisters, family and friends for believing. I encourage freedom of choice, freedom thinking and being free to believe in what you want to believe. That is the beauty of this country and the beauty of the greatest document ever created, the constitution of the United States of America. It is the projecting of religious concepts over the Bill of Rights onto other people that tends to rile me up on the subject.

I have said this before about religion and religious folks:

"If one or many make religion/faith about them, internally, and not about empathy, love and support for others then the message they believe in and support is the wrong one. You have missed the point if you ever think this is all about you… The second you do that, the battles and wars you wage in the name of that faith are perverted, fundamentally and logically wrong. If you believe in hell, you are more than likely already on that ‘one-way ticket to midnight, call it, Heavy Metal…’”

Club Satan by David-Angelo Mineo 12/15/2023 2,417 Words

[robotface]

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

I've just read the first book, not the whole trilogy yet.

I was expecting it to be really dry, I don't know why. The last book I read by Asimov must have been when I was in middle school and I think it was above my reading level. Also, I had been told it was "focused on politics" and spanned several generations in its story so my closest frame of reference for what to expect was Dune.

It's actually more like a series of mostly self-contained short stories with a few decades from each one to the next, and the writing is very engaging. If you like Ursula Le Guin's Hainish cycle, Asimov seems to be interested in similar concepts with Foundation, albeit with worse politics.

I liked it a lot, but the things I didn't like are more interesting for me to write about so I'm going to just rip into it. Spoilers, I guess:

There's FTL travel, laser guns, and nuclear reactors you can fit in your pocket in this world, but they aren't super consequential. They're there, but not really explored. The real Sci Fi Thing that this book is about is Psychohistory: a field of mathematics that can be used to predict the trajectories of large populations of people and the various forces that move through them such as religion, economics, and nationalism. It's established at the beginning that it can be used to predict the actions of an individual, but it's not particularly suited to the task and requires a great deal of careful study of the person in question.

In the first chapter, The Smartest Most Geniusest Psychohistory Boy uses his big brain powers to predict the course of human history for the next several thousand years, and sets events in motion to minimize the period of time between the galactic empire collapsing and a new one taking form to just 1000 years.

Already I'm not really on board with the idea that a galactic empire is even a good thing to have. There's never really any challenge to that claim, and the book also seems to assume that it's so self-evidently desirable that it doesn't even need to try to convince the reader of it. Asimov doesn't pretend such an empire could sustain itself forever, but the time of "anarchy" (Asimov's word) between is filled with feudalism, tyranny, corruption, barbarianism, religious dogmatism, and anti-science thinking. The ideal setup is to keep those periods briefand the rule of the empires long. Maybe later in the series this outlook will be further interrogated and developed but for now I don't think there's any evidence there's supposed to be an unreliable narrator or anything, I just think Asimov's politics are bad.

Anyways, Psychohistory is supposed to work best on massive populations, right? Well, it turns out the rest of the book is some Great Man Theory bullshit where every chapter one guy singlehandedly changes the course of human history to the next crucial stage that Special Psychohistory Boy had planned out. So is this Psychohistory working on large populations or not? He certainly didn't have the opportunity to closely study any of these one guys, most of them weren't even born yet when he died. He predicts a couple events out to the exact day! Am I going insane? They keep talking throughout the book about how it needs to be driven by the "blind masses", but the actual plot is just a series of one guys being crucial to events unfolding the way they do.

I know I identified it as the big Sci Fi Thing in the series, which means you aren't supposed to ask too many questions because eventually the answer has to be "it just works". But when the Sci Fi Thing is FTL, you don't say that it works one way in chapter one and then have it actually work a different way for the rest of the book.

Last big problem: until the final chapter, there's no evidence there are any women at all in the entire galaxy, like, they're not even alluded to outside of a single joke in chapter one ("100000 men" "actually I think you're counting women and children as well"). Not a single one! And the one woman character is basically a clue about who's giving one faction nuclear weapons: she's been married over to their leader from another faction as a treaty. If she wasn't in the story we'd figure it out a few pages later anyway. I know "sci fi of that era was just like that" but seriously I've read fucking Conan the Barbarian novels with better written female characters. Still not great, but at least they "exist" and "have goals and motivations" which they "pursue and effect the course of the plot"

Finally, a tiny nitpick: throughout the book there are excerpts from the "Encyclopedia Galactica" which have a serious tone issue. They're just written in the same Isaac Asimov voice the rest of the book is written in! They're trying too hard to be dramatic and clever, and I just can't accept the idea that they're supposed to be encyclopedia articles. I just kept imagining how if they were on Wikipedia they would get WP:NPOVed in a heartbeat.

[pointnumbersixteen]

Random Notes from a 3:30AM Re-Watch of the First Third of S3E1: the Bone Plot

1) “Helloooo. Where’s she been hiding?” I enjoy this line because it implies that Julian is so lost in the sauce that A: he failed to notice the planning for an arrival of a costumed documentary film team while all of the upstairs ghosts (save Humphrey, being neglected again, of course) are there and watching, perfectly aware...

2) and B: he considers it entirely possible that he just totally failed to notice/find an additional Ghost in the house for the nearly 30 years he’s been there. 

3) “Maggie’s leadership style.” First, bwahahahahaha. That line makes me grin every time I hear it. Second, Julian, my guy, why would there a be a presenter in Tudor dress there to do a documentary on ‘80s politics? How squiffy is he, exactly? 

4) Also: while I appreciate that they make it clear that Julian didn’t stoop low enough to be a fan of Thatcher, I don’t know enough about UK politics to know whether the alternative to Thatcher, if you were conservative, was better or worse. Thoughts?

5) Alison, ghosts, c’mon y’all... this lady is dressed up in a Tudor costume and talking about Queen Elizabeth and a plot against her, while you all live with a decapitated Tudor era ghost. Why did it have to be spelled out before y’all put two and two together? Do they just forget Humphrey exists when he’s not around? ...Because that would explain more than it doesn’t, actually. 

6) Plenty of people have already said this, but I absolutely adore the presenter reacting to the bee and Pat laughing and going ‘one for the bloopers’ as a callback to their Horrible History bloopers. 

7) Have we ever been shown the alleged gatehouse that the B&B is gonna be in now? Because it gets mentioned every now and then but I don’t recall ever seeing it, even though we’ve seen plenty of shots of the house and driving up the driveway and such. Is there a big fancy building in one of these shots that I’ve just totally overlooked or is the gatehouse an imaginary building that we as viewers are just pretending exists? I consider both options equally possible and will be content with either, I’d just like to be sure.

8) “Are you mad?” “Context?” I love this bit of exchange between Mike and Alison, because it implies the answer to that question is sometimes probably yes and I’m like, same, Alison, same. 

9) “Bitches! Bitches!” That line will never get old to me.  

10) As a person who really enjoys the idea of linguistics but is entirely incapable of communicating in real time in a foreign language, I feel Humphrey and his sad mangled French on a spiritual level. As a member of the upper class, he almost certainly studied it at some point, as it was part of the standard education of the times... but I get it, I took six years of Spanish and can’t speak more than a few very basic sentences that I have memorized. Extemporaneous speaking just doesn’t work. I can read and write okay but in person... nope. But then, I can’t even do pretend accents or impressions or anything like that. Nothing comes out. My voice box puts out unreliable shitty working class midwestern English or nothing. Is that weird? I might be getting off topic.    

11) I spend a lot of this episode wanting to hit Pat with a broom, which is unfortunate, because I usually love Pat.

12)  Also, that Barclay noticed the documentary early enough to plan to gate crash it- he was apparently told by Jan from the shop, who also knew- just enforces point number 1.

13) I’m glad we finally cleared up Julian’s cause of death this season and that it turned out it was the least sticky of all possible options.

14) “They’ll ask about the top! [Giggle.] That’s a fact!” I kinda feel like Obi did the ‘Butt Hoe’ thing on purpose now. On the one hand, kind of serves Mike right for pressing a friend to make him a custom tee shirt in a few hours... but on the other hand, I’m don’t think poor Alison deserved to be caught in the crossfire of that one.  

15) “That’s offensive to at least five different religions.” “There are only three in it.” I kind of want to hear what exactly the priest painted gold, now. 

16) Also, Fanny and Cap’s commentary on Pat’s joke and Pat’s response: “Give over. It’s just a harmless bit of fun,” makes me think that -while I do love his character- if he existed in real life, he’d probably be one of those casually offensive baby boomers that are insufferable. 

[bxdbxdboy]

Character Development

BASICS

Full Name:  Luz Noceda 

Alias:   Apprentice

Nicknames: Bad Boy, (Luz Squad) B.Boy, (herself) Soft Boy, (Cottage) Baby Boy, (Eda) Nice Boy, (Sunny) Sweetheart (Bee)

Sex / Gender:  Female, Nonbinary  (she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs ) .

Right or Left:    Left 

Age:   16.

Height:   5'6″.

Eye Color:    dark brown

Hair Color:   Dark brown

Distinguishing Marks:  She has a raven tattoo over her scar she received trying to stop her villain in her timeline. She’s shaved her left eyebrow in the middle to match her friend’s scar.  

Paragraph Of Physical Traits: She’s got a rather strong build which means she has no weak nerd arms and a significant amount of muscle to her arm. Her hair is slicked back like a wave and it’s always been like that it just has always naturally curled and folded over in that direction. When she sleeps it gets wavy or spikey sticking up like a parrot.

FAMILY / RELIGION

Parents / Guardians:     Camilla Noceda 

Siblings: n/a  adopted Brother King.

Marital Status:  Not married. 

Significant Other(s): Bee (Amity-Bee), Blushy (Amity in her timeline)  

Children:   N/A.

Other Relatives:   Many Many cousins, aunts and uncles and cousins on both sides of the family. 

Pets:   Bunga, (familiar, honey badger) Saturn, (familiar magical Owl) Calypso. (palisman Sable)  

Friends:     Cottage, Sunny, Iris, Bee, Lucky, Otter, Puppy, Gus, Willow.

Enemies:     Emperor Belos. 

Ethnicity:     Latina 

Religion:     None. 

Beliefs:    N/A

Superstitions:    black cats, broken mirrors. KARMA!

Languages:   English. Spanish. 

Diction / Accent:    Spanish 

SCHOOL / WORK / HOME

Education:   Public School / High scool leverl/ Hexside

Degree(s):   Not yet. 

Occupation:   Local Power washer for her boiling isles, Food delivery, Potion distributor. 

Own or Rent:    Neither.

Living Space:   Eda’s home in the owl house, Her home in the human realm, and Magic Treehouse bedroom. 

Work Space:    N/A.

Main Mode of Transport:   Skateboarding, Walking, running, or flying. Can drive, will learn, will drive without license. 

PSYCHOLOGY

Fears:      Being replaced / abandoned,  her anger issues, her home getting concurred, loosing her friends, venomous snakes, possessed creatures, dark mimics. spiders, The deepest depths of the Ocean, Slender Man, Siren Head.  

Secrets:    A big softie just doesn’t want many who meet her to realize it. 

IQ:     Was never formally tested,   but she may not be as intellectually gifted as the other Luz’s There’s a big jock mentally mindset to her as a whole.

Eating Habits:  Ravenous Appetite, no matter how much she eats she’s always asking for more. She can put some food away if someone has something they’re saving it’s too late she’s already gotten to it. 

Food Preferences: She enjoys Hot Wings they are her most favorite food besides Pizza coming around at a close second She likes a lot of junk food candy, cookies, chips of all kinds. On occasion she will eat something green though like some lettuce with taco meat or a green pepper. She’ll eat it all everything under the sun and even be adventurous eating a wide margin of other foods. She almost always has hot sauce on her there isn’t a single kind of meal she doesn’t love covered in the hot stuff.  

Sleeping Habits:   She sleeps well, for the most part, when she isn’t attempting to be a night owl she falls asleep relatively quick, even rivaling some of the younger Luz’s with how early she can fall asleep. It’s likely she has sleep apnea as she has tendency to snore so very loud and wakes up during the night in cold sweat, when she stops breathing from night terrors. She will oversleep until almost 2:00 in the afternoon if not monitored.         

Book Preferences:   She’s not a big egg-head book reader like the rest of the squad is the most Bad Boy read in school was “Animal Farm”, and The “Lord of the Flies”, in high school two books that peaked her interest a little bit. She also enjoys listening to Cottage read some horror books it’s the most she’ll really listen rather than use her eyes to read, in fact, one would say she struggles to read efficiently. 

Music Preferences:     Hip Hop, Rap, Dubstep, 80′s music, The Weekend, Various artists. 

Leader or Follower:    She likes to be the boss, but will occasionally follow if she doesn’t have to do much. 

Planner or Spontaneous:  Spontaneous! All of her ideas are never planned out she definitely does not look before she leaps. Her leaps are full of optimism and happy stupidity. The only time she tends to plan is when Bee holds her hand and forces her to take a step back. 

Journal:    Nope

Hobbies:    Dancing,   listening to music,     training,    watching videos / shows,  exercising,  roasting members of the Luz squad, doing dangerous stunts, skateboarding, basketball, baseball, (more so the batting range)  Surfing (Prior), Deep woods exploring, practicing her magic, teaching her familiars, (Saturn and Bunga) Listening to music, Swooning Bee, Video games, Baking Pizza, Breakdancing, Beat Boxing, Collecting Hats, Serenading, Dancing, Snuggling King.

How Do They Relax:  By listening to some calming beats privately, counting to 10, or at any point stroked by Bee she curls and becomes softer. 

What Excites Them:  Competitions,  Wild magic, Magical Creatures, Parkour, Plane Crash videos, Unus Annus, Dogs! Kitties, Being in charge, Buffalo sauce, Food!, Flirting, 

What Stresses Them:  Bossy individuals, Strict Parents, Rude people, Being inside the Emperor Castle, Being the butt of the joke, Tests, Explosives. Needles. 

Pet Peeves:   Vegan food, Whining, losing games, Being accused of being a perv, mocking, people stealing her hat,  Lucky sending her cursed images. 

Prejudices:  high horse, pretends not to be a trouble maker to stay in good graces, struggling to not be hostile towards her doppelgängers, 

Attitudes:   Closed off, Laid back, Aggressive,  or chill and cool depending on who you are. Bad Boy appears to be the “scary” anger issues Luz that is liable to explode at any moment and when she does her face and ears can get as red as Bee’s. You’re either in good graces with her or your not, she’s not always easy to approach unless you have a good sense of humor than she cracks up with you about stupid jokes. 

Obsessions:    Her shoes and hats, her favorite music, lids, BEE

Addictions:    Does addiction to sugary cereal count? because oh my god-!!

Ambitions:     Defeat Belos in her timeline, find a way to get adopted as a sibling by Cottage Core, Have her own identity outside of Cottage and the Luz squad.   Become a powerful witch, Make her mom proud.  

ASTROLOGY / PHISIOLOGY

Birth Date:    November 26,    2005.

Sign:    Sagittarius

Traits Associated with Western Sign:  loyal, smart, assertive, and compassionate personality   

Chinese Zodiac Sign:    The rooster

Traits Associated with Chinese Sign: active, amusing, and popular within a crowd. Roosters are talkative, outspoken, frank, open, honest, and loyal individuals. They like to be the center of attention and always appear attractive and beautiful.

Handwriting:     It’s okay…;      fairly sloppy.

Sexual History:   N/A.

General Health:     She takes pretty good care of herself as far as hygiene and having a good confident attitude.  experiencing some struggles with her adhd, bad posture leaves her with some back pain.

Mental Disabilities:      PTSD,   ADHD,  depression,  

Allergies:   Seasonal.

OBJECTS KEPT IN

Purse / Bag:  Wallet, towel, water bottle, Treehouse keys key chain,

Wallet:     Photo ID, Gold, Cash, rings, Brass knuckle, 

Fridge:     Chalked full of between meal and frozen pizza. 

Medicine Cabinet:  Bandages, Healing Potions, Icey-hot muscle rub,  

Glove Compartment:   Parking tickets, Trespassing tickets, concert tickets. 

Junk Drawer:     fidget spinners, gum, pens, sharpies, stress balls. 

Backpack:   Hats, Snacks, Mints, hair gel, Extra clothes, socks,  pepper spray, hand sanitizer, suntan lotion, hair brush

Desk:   Doodles, Paper Airplanes, Crumpled up Paper.

Clothes Pockets:    Phone, Hot Sauce packets, hand warmers, stress ball.  

OTHER

Halloween Costumes:   A zombie, the cementary is hiring.

Talents:    break dancing, beat boxing, fighting in close quarters, self defense, making Luz squad question their sanity, making jokes, flipping her hat. being annoying. 

Politics: Nah. 

Flaws:   stand offish,  moody,     blunt and direct,   vain,  doesn’t like to be on the losing side indecisive, selfish,

Strengths:  Her optimism, strong sense of personal integrity, avoiding the status quo, free spirited, confidence level, good sense of humor.  

Drugs / Alcohol:    N/A. No who invited? 

Passwords:     The most random shit. 

Prized Possessions:   Her hat passed down by her oldest cousin, her unus annus sweatshirt, a small wolf plushy named Akela 

Time and Place:    Currently, at the Treehouse interviewing new members of the Luz squad. She just got back from a trip and she has jet lag.     

Special Places:      The treehouse, her original house, The owl house, the forest where she goes to meet Blushy, The cliff by the Grom tree, the beach. 

Special Memories:   Meeting Eda and King then running into Cottage and Bee, Becoming friends with Cottage Core learning magic from them, Teasing Belos and Hunter with Cottage Core, Dancing with Bee at her Grom, becoming a polyamorous couple with Bee and Cottage. Being accepted into the Luz Squad. 

Tagged by:    Stole it from @witchesborn​

Tagging:    You,    if you want to do it.

[destielshippingnews]

Edvard's Supernatural Rewatch & Review: 1x04 Phantom Traveler

In this week’s analysis, I’ll be discussing the unfortunate introduction of Abrahamic mythology, the lamentable gender politics of Dean in his nightwear, and magic languages.

Supernatural’s fourth offering, 1x04 Phantom Traveler, (not a misspelling, 'traveller' is spelt like that in America) is a solid episode. It’s not fantastic, and Supernatural certainly has better to offer, but it’s still an entertaining watch which introduces demons into the Supernatural universe and continues developing Dean and Sam’s characters, making them more distinct.

It is also the first episode Robert Singer directed for Supernatural. I didn’t see much to particularly comment on in the direction for this episode (my two years of Media Studies were not wasted on me at all), but one interesting choice, however, is the tracking shot of Dean’s sleeping form straight after the title card. EscapingPurgatory podcast had a shrewd postulation: the intended audience was heterosexual educated men between the ages of roughly 15 and 39, but a lot of them would be watching with their girlfriends and wives etc, and Dean is the brother who’s available at the moment.

Returning to the plot of the show, the script does itself a major disservice as early as the cold open. This episode was broadcast in America four years after 9/11 (almost four and a half in Britain) and was right in the middle of the decades-long and still ongoing war on drugs. The atmosphere surrounding airfare has changed fundamentally. The air hostess clearly saw the man’s black eyes and was affected by it, and should have alerted somebody on the plane to her worries, because she would have thought he was on drugs of some variety at the very least, and possibly smuggling drugs on the plane. However, for the purposes of the plot she does not act on her misgivings, but simply gasps and goes about her day.

This raises the question of why the demon revealed its presence like that. Demons are usually incredibly stupid on Supernatural, but this level of dumb is difficult for me to believe. The air hostess could have very easily had the man thrown off the aeroplane, and then its plan would be scuppered. The most likely reason was to show the audience that the man was possessed, but the audience was going to find that out in about a minute’s time anyway, so why reveal it there? It breaks the fourth wall in a bad way.

Whilst on the aeroplane and the demon’s plan, the episode never makes the demon’s motivations explicit. Sure, Sam claims that demons like death and destruction for their own sake, but this doesn’t fit well with how demons behave later in the show. They are, forsooth, as thick as poo, but they usually have higher ups telling them what to do. Was the demon’s repeated downing of aeroplanes part of a higher up’s plan?

Before I go on, it’s worthwhile mentioning that this episode is the first one to introduce the idea of an actual Abrahamic Hell in the Supernatural universe. It’s not the only genre show of its kind to have included something like this, with Charmed having the Underworld where the Source of All Evil resided, and Buffy having various Hell dimensions, but those two examples weren’t Hell as depicted in the Bible.

Joss Whedon specifically avoided the idea of a Hell and employed dimensions ruled by demons and demon gods rather than Archangel Lucifer. Charmed used the Underworld as an equivalent of Hell, but it was not a place of punishment for human souls. While Charmed is definitely my least favourite fantasy/horror/sci-fi genre show (Prue notwithstanding), I appreciated that it took a step away from Abrahamic mythology. Buffy/Angel were even better, having their own mythology that had precious little to do with Middle Eastern religions and more to do with Dunsany, Lovecraft or sometimes even Tolkien.

Kripke, however, took the lazy route with Abrahamic, specifically Christian, mythology, a choice which I believe was to the show’s detriment. It’s supposed to be a show about American folklore and urban legends, but that stuff eventually gets thrown under the bus. Forget Native Americans, screw the Americanised versions of Scandiwegian lore, screw the Old West and the Gold Rush and all the tales revolving around America’s history. And Canada? Pfft. What even is Canada? And don’t even think about Mexico. Let’s just have yet more desert myths from 2-3000 years ago.

My distaste aside, this universe has a Hell (and a Heaven), and demons are made by torturing humans until all humanity is gone from them, or by letting the humans off the torture rack if they agree to become the torturers.

Knowing this, two possibilities come to mind. One is that this demon is repeating its own human death for some reason, and another is that it kills people and drags their souls to Hell to make more demons.

Repeating its own death is entirely speculative, but this episode mixes up demons with traits later associated with ghosts and death echoes. Never again is an EMF reader used to detect demonic activity, and unless I’ve forgotten a certain example, demons aren’t shown to act as specifically as this again.

The second option, that of dragging souls to Hell, doesn’t seem likely as it’s made clear that demon deals or trades are required in order for Hell to get its claws on human souls, at least in usual circumstances. There’s nothing saying that demons can’t just decide to drag certain souls to Hell, and there is an implication at the end of this episode that this might actually be the case, but it’s a stretch. If this were the case, however, it would give the demon a real motive and make the episode less of a stand-alone bit of fun with overt X-Files vibes.

Sticking with Hell events on the aeroplane for now, let’s skip to the end and the exorcism. Whilst trying to exorcise the demon, it tells Sam that Jessica is burning in Hell. Dean tries to reassure Sam by saying that demons read minds and that it was trying to get to him, but demons can only know the minds of people they possess. This then leaves three options: the demon was lying and Jess is in Heaven, it was telling the truth and Jess is in Hell, or the demon was just trying to get to Sam, but unbeknownst to him Jess actually was in Hell.

Technically speaking, Jess shouldn’t be in Hell. She didn’t make a deal (that we know of) and it’s established later in the show that most people go to Heaven anyway. But Kevin didn’t, neither did Eileen or Bobby. Mary did, even though she made a deal with Azazel, and she died under the same circumstances as Jess. As Jess is never mentioned as being in Hell by another demon in the show, and as Dean, Sam and Cas eventually visit Hell and find nothing of her there, we can assume Jessica went to Heaven.

The exorcism in this episode is strange compared to exorcisms in the rest of the show. The Doyle (external to the text) explanation is clearly that the writers didn’t know exactly how they wanted things to work yet, but the Watson (within the text) explanation could be that they used a different exorcism ritual. Later in the show, there is no intermediate stage between being expelled from the host body and being banished to Hell: they just go directly down. This version, though, forces the demon to manifest and thereby makes it much stronger and more dangerous. I personally think the version in this episode makes the demons more of a threat because it’s harder to exorcise them, but I can see why it became streamlined later in the show.

The fact the demon possessed the aeroplane, however, raises the question of why it didn’t do so in the first place. Maybe it’s more fun to possess a human first.

Speaking of the ritual, Jared tells us on the commentary that he had to have a Latin teacher from a local university instruct him in Ecclesiastical Latin because he learnt Classical Latin at school. As a language person, I’m left wondering why. It’s the same language, just pronounced differently. Does the spell need to be pronounced in a certain way in order to work? If so, would the Ancient Romans have been completely incapable of expelling demons with their own language? Would they have had to rely on Greek, Etruscan, Gaulish or Sumerian for the rituals? It’s just completely unnecessary, especially as we later see Rowena casting spells in Scottish Gaelic, Irish witches casting spells in Irish, Celtic ‛demons’ performing rituals in Gaulish…

At least the university teacher got a little bit of extra money, I suppose.

Sticking with the aeroplane a little bit longer, Dean’s fear of flying is a welcome expansion to his character, though it was clearly included with the intent of making fun of him. It could easily have been played as such, but Jensen’s comments on the commentary indicate he saw it as an opportunity to provide more depth to Dean, as his connection with Lucas through their shared childhood trauma did in 1x03 Dead in the Water. In these two episodes, Jensen begins taking Dean away from the writers and making him his own: he was supposed to be the sidekick, but Jensen said nope.

In making Dean afraid of flying, but having him so insistent upon flying in spite of it, The Show perhaps did itself a bit of a disservice in its mission of making Sam The Hero and Dean The Sidekick. Dean was terrified, but flew anyway. That is bravery, and it’s what the audience wants to see in a hero.

Sam, however, does not miss an opportunity to make me dislike him (you knew this was coming at some point, don’t look surprised). Not only is he incredibly unappreciative and derisive of Dean’s talents, such as making his own EMF from an old Walkman, but he was also derisive of Dean’s fear of flying.

Sorry, let me reword that. Derisive of Dean for being scared of flying. It’s perfectly rational to be afraid of being in a giant metal bird suspended miles above the ground, but Dean agreed to it anyway in order to save people. And Sam treats him like a child because he’s scared of take-off and turbulence. Dean’s fear is a rational one, something that a person who hasn’t been sheltered from reality would have. Sam’s greatest fear, however, is…

Clowns.

I get it, they’re brothers, and siblings are supposed to rib on each other like this (the siblings I still talk to aren’t like this with me or each other, so I find it difficult to relate to Dean and Sam’s relationship) but it makes Sam come across as an utter cunny-hole. If somebody is clearly terrified of something and on the edge of a panic attack, you don’t sneer and mock, and then demand he calm down. Sure, Dean needed to calm down and Sam was the only one who could do it, but talking to him like a child just reveals how little Sam knows of taking care of other people. He’s the pampered younger brother, and it really shows.

He also shows a lack of judgement when roughly putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder while he was distracted. Dean’s essentially a war child (and suffers C-PTSD) and you just shouldn’t do things like this to somebody like that. That’s how you trigger panic attacks or flashbacks. Ask a veteran, I’m sure s/he’ll agree.

Aside from that, the middle-aged man on the aeroplane winked at Dean – winked – when Dean was walking down the aisle with his EMF reader. A man winking at a man has sexual overtones nowadays, and has done for a long time. How many men wink at a built guy standing over them like that unless they’re sure they won’t be punched in the face? Dean had his EMF reader out at that moment, but he was simultaneously on somebody else’s radar. Something about Dean set sexual bells ringing in cameo middle-aged man’s head. Regarding Sam, there’s two important moments for him in this episode (Jess aside): when he discovers John talked about and praised him in his absence, and when he exorcises the demon. It’s made clear in a few episodes’ time that Sam never felt like he fit in with his family, and that he believed John was disappointed in him. Exactly how he came to this conclusion is uncertain, since John doted on Sam and afforded him liberties he never would have allowed Dean, but it’s clear their relationship is difficult. Going away to university was Sam’s attempt to run away from the dysfunctional family he felt an outsider in and to escape John (and Dean): that he apparently didn’t speak to either John or Dean during his time there says a lot.

He finds out, however, that John praised him, undermining somewhat Sam’s belief that John regarded him as a disappointment. Episode 1x05 Bloody Mary provides another moment of character growth for Sam that subtly changes the way he perceives himself, but all in due course.

Praise from parents is important for children, and it really shouldn’t be hard for parents to tell their children they’re proud of them, even if they don’t say it in as many words. In spite of his difficult relationship with John, Sam gets that by proxy in this episode (whilst Dean’s happily checking out all the men in the hangar) and it changes the way he sees himself and John, even if only slightly.

The other moment – discussed above – is his exorcism of the demon. I don’t mince my words about disliking Sam, but even I can see he had potential. He’s the weird kid who wanted a normal life, but because of cursed blood had that hope denied him. Series 4 shows us the beginning of what Sam could have turned into when his blood magic arc truly kicks off, and it could have been a riveting plotline if written and handled well. Think for example of Willow in Buffy and the journey she went on with her magic powers: there was real darkness in there, and a gargantuan struggle to overcome it and become stronger.

This exorcism reminds me of Willow’s first steps at witchcraft in 2x22 when she casts the spell to restore a certain character’s soul and we see the potential for true strength as she performs the spell with ease. This exorcism of Sam’s should have been something similar, and his demonic powers should not have been completely removed and forgotten about in 8x23. He could have been Supernatural’s answer to Willow, and the Dark!Sam arc in series 3-7 could have been the first in his descent into darkness and his fight back out to take control of his own powers and become the opposite of what Azazel wanted him to be.

But – and not for the last time – three words come to mind. Such potential, Supernatural.

You might remember I mentioned the tracking shot of Dean (and neglected to mention the revealing shot of his thighs and underwear). Paula R. Stiles’ suggestion that the fact the writers and director for this episode were men doesn’t cheapen it is one I don’t understand. Jensen is in my 100% objective and unbiased opinion one of the finest men alive, but exploiting that in order to draw in an audience does cheapen the show.

To be fair, Supernatural is hardly high culture and commercial television is about revenue, but things like that break the illusion of artistic integrity, just like not making Dean explicitly bisexual does because that’d scare away too much of the audience. If having scantily-clad women in a show or film is there for the male gaze and drawing in money, then so too are Dean’s thighs and buttocks, similarly cheapening the show. If the male gaze objectifies women, stripping them of their power and subjecting them to male desires, then the female gaze objectifies and strips men of any power they might have and subjects them to female desires.

If it’s bad for the gander, it should also be bad for the goose.

Neither do I think it matters one bit that the writer and director are men, or am I supposed to believe a woman has never encouraged or coerced another woman to flash a bit of boob in order to get men to empty their pockets? Claiming that presenting a person as an object of possible sexual attraction turns him into an ‛object’ is strange, and that claim’s only ever made when women are being presented for men’s enjoyment.

But let’s stick to Supernatural because I have work in the morning. To be honest, I never notice if a woman on screen is being subjected to a ‛male’ gaze because I have no sexual or romantic interest in women whatsoever: if a woman is supposed to be portrayed as appealing to men’s eyes, it’ll usually go straight over my head because it just doesn’t register as having anything to do with sex. Interesting, however, is that this begins the trend of treating Dean in certain ways that women are usually treated, or associating him with ‛feminine’ traits.

Some people go overboard with for example Dean’s association with and likeness to Mary, his taking on the parental (maternal?) role in Sam’s upbringing, his knack with children etc, and use it as evidence to suggest that any traditionally masculine behaviour – or masculine behaviour at all – from Dean is a performance to keep up an act so that he can hide how feminine he really is.

My take on this is quite different than the condescending viewpoint that a man behaving like a man is performing and pretending. Dean’s ‛feminine’ traits are not his ‛true’ self in opposition to his feigned masculine behaviour. There is absolutely no contradiction between Dean exhibiting ‛feminine’ traits such as being good with children, cooking, or trying his hardest to fill the role Mary would have filled, and being a masculine man who identifies very strongly with being male.

I do think it’s fascinating, though, and the complexity and depth of Dean as a male character is one of the reasons he is one of my favourite characters. We rarely get to see men who are very manly and also incredibly loving, loyal and paternal and who exhibit a normal range of human behaviours and interests, including ‛masculine’ and ‛feminine’. That’s what normal men are like, something television and film seem to have forgotten.

Regarding Dean in bed, note that he is a stomach sleeper (sleeping on your stomach keeps your tummy safe), and this is consistent throughout all fifteen years of the show. However, this early in the show he takes his trousers, outer shirts and shoes off, in contrast to sleeping fully dressed as he begins doing sometime rather soon. He’s alert and cautious this early in the show, but not yet quite so worn down that he can’t be bothered to get ready for bed.

Note also that both brothers have sleeping problems here. Dean knew Sam was still up at 3am, meaning Dean likely slept for less than three hours, having been woken up by Sam at 5:45.

The end of the episode presents the brothers with something to be hopeful about. John has a new mobile phone number, the first evidence they’ve had so far that he is very probably still alive. It’s not much to go on, and John does not answer Dean and Sam’s call, but it’s something the boys can latch on to and keep them searching for John. Whether or not they should be searching for John is another question altogether, though, but at least it got the plot going in 1x01.,

Phantom Traveler is a strong but flawed episode which builds on last week’s expansion of Dean’s character and role, as well as introducing demons and Hell into the lore. The cut scene where Dean has to remove all his concealed weapons before going into the airport really should have been kept in because it says a lot about his character, as does his sleeping with a blade under his pillow, but other than that, I’m happy to leave this episode now on a positive note.

[delusion-of-negation]

top 10 (ish) ridiculous or annoying FAQs:

(click at your own discretion)

1) "kids today rely on others to do everything"

ah yes, damn those participation trophies! if it wasn't for them my hands wouldn't be fucked, and I wouldn't need people to write for me. but seriously, stop reading boomer comics, and go outside to meet some actual young people.

2) "sus that a non-american says mom"

yeah, because it's clearly the superior version, and I'm not too patriotic to concede a defeat.

3) "sweaty, the victims of abuse by catholics are real people, stop appropriating their pain just because you want to hate catholics; plus teachers abuse people just as often anyway"

so firstly, I don't hate anybody. and secondly, regarding the fact that victims really do exist, [insert "of course I know him, he's me" meme here]; although I don't often talk much about the abuse I went through or what my religious beliefs are. but, more importantly, statements like "survivors are people" can be phrased like "some people are survivors", and when you're unable to act according to the latter (like when you don't even consider that somebody might be one) then you display a failure to recognise the former - you're projecting; a survivor can't be appropriating their own pain, but you can be appropriating it to silence one. and thirdly, teachers do abuse - the problem isn't and has never been purely religion, rather that abuse is often done by somebody in a position of trust, power, and familiarity; and that the lack of a global minimum enables totally legal abuse on top of the illegal stuff. people with access and respect have more opportunity to abuse than those without, and that goes for teachers too. but, once again, you can be appropriating the pain of survivors to deflect and silence people. please remember this before you say that shit.

4) "get help/therapy"

way ahead of you - years ahead of you. but it's not magic - people who say this often act as if you'll start behaving differently overnight. not only are some things simply beyond the ability of talking therapy to completely rectify, it also takes time and has to be selective. you've got to pick your priorities, and that's definitely not whatever ship or joke you're mad at me about today. therapy is a slow, arduous process that can't guarantee results - it isn't "anti-recovery" to recognise that, it's honesty. while I've been in therapy for a long time, it is not necessarily going to change whatever you don't like about me - whether that's because it can't, because my focus now is on more important or urgent things, or because I don't want to change that.

5a) "tell your family you ship incest, see how that goes; normal people find it disgusting"

actually, some know, and they're fine with it. in fact, one prefers sibling pairings in fiction to all other dynamics because, to paraphrase, "it's a deeper level of messed up co-dependence". so unfortunately for you, my remaining family (by which I mean those not dead or cut out of my life after abuse and so forth) actually are able to distinguish between fiction and reality. plus, my reasoning for caring if they find it gross or not pertains only to recommending books and such - their opinions do not dictate my tastes.

5b) "don't sexualise/appropriate incestuous abuse" and "I bet you enjoyed being raped" and other attempts to upset me over 5a

firstly, as I've already said here, survivors can't be appropriating ourselves. in addition, you're not owed people's history or trauma - it's not okay to require people's personal information, or else you'll send anon hate and accusations of appropriation. secondly, I'm not sexualising our abuse (not just because I write horror, and so a lot of my writing is intended to be creepy, not sexy); these stories aren't about us, they're not us at all. entire dynamics/people (fictional or otherwise) aren't all going to be applicable to us or identical to us, just because they have something in common with us; they're not us and they're not accountable to us. thirdly, the fact that people send this stuff (attempting to trigger people's trauma over ships) is so much more worrying to me than somebody making our communal imaginary friends kiss. you're trying to hurt people. and finally, to the "I bet you enjoyed it" crowd (if you're at all serious): do you think you'd enjoy being in a real zombie apocalypse, alone, afraid, and really at risk of being eaten alive? a fictional scenario does not feel remotely the same as a real one. this isn't rocket science - things that look like you aren't you; fiction isn't reality; don't send anon hate. (edit: comparable "just leave me alone, I'm not hurting anyone" sentiments for yandere stuff, and anything else you decide I'm naughty for.)

6) "you'll be sent off to do manual labour once your communist revolution happens"

while I don't know why people think that I'm a communist, a dictatorial regime probably isn't going to want me to do manual labour. they're more likely to just shoot me; I'm useless and a liability. call me crazy, but something tells me that "ah yes, we shall give ze deranged cripple ze power tools" isn't the communist position.

7a) "they/them can't be singular pronouns"

yes they can, and they're used as such in both shakespeare and the bible. but you don't have to say this - I'm also okay with he/him, so you could've just used those and chilled out. also, do I look like somebody who views the rules of grammar as fully immutable and imperative?

7b) "enbies/aros/pan/etc aren't valid"

do you really think that you're going to change any hearts or minds by putting that in my ask box or under my funny maymays? chill out, it's not worth the effort - you could be planning a party (in minecraft) and having fun instead. it isn't worth my time to rant at everybody who's saying something isn't valid, updating how I'm explaining it as my opinions grow and general discourse around it evolves; I'm just who I am, somebody else is who they are - why bicker in presumptuous ways about if that's enough? it ultimately is valid, in my opinion, but that isn't an invitation to keep demanding that I debate. (edit: old posts of mine probably don't phrase things incredibly, on this or anything... I tried.)

8) "what are your politics?"

my politics are informed first and foremost by the knowledge that I'm not cut out to be some kind of leader - I don't want to be the guy who tells everyone else what to do, I just offer what seem to me like valid criticisms of how we are doing things now, and general pointers on the values and ethics that I would prefer to move towards. things like individual freedom, taking the most pacifist route where possible, trying not to give excessive power to small groups of people (governments or corporations), helping those in need even when they're not palatable, and letting me suck loads of dicks. but please refrain from decreeing me something - there's not enough information in what I said, so you'll just be filling in the blanks with assumptions. (edit: workplace democracy seems cool to me; benefits are good; fair fines and taxes; and the "sperm makes you loopy" saga: 1, 2, 3, and 4.)

9) "you're a narcissist"

no, I don't meet the diagnostic criteria. joking on the internet that you're hot doesn't make a person a narcissist. the fact that I've chosen to keep my actual self-esteem issues to myself is not proof that they don't exist - you're just not entitled to that information about me. but it's also not narcissism to really like how you look. (edit: don't throw labels around carelessly too.)

10a) "kin list?"

the fabric of the universe, a zombie, dionysus, maned wolf/arctic fox hybrid, a comedian, big gay, big rock, ambiguously partial insincerity. (edit: kin list may or may not be incomplete.)

10b) "kin isn't valid/that's just being insane"

haven't we established that I'm deranged, and that sending stuff like this on anon is simply a waste of your precious time? besides, I do not care if it's invalid or insane - it's fun, I'm happy. (edit: see 7b for my opinion on sending me yet another ask with "that's invalid" in it; I'm not in the mood to discuss the nature of validity.)

bonus: "it gets better" and "trigger list?"

as I've said before, things just don't always get better for everyone - sometimes things can't be cured or even treated, sometimes they kill you; in some cases it could get better if not for a blockade or lack of time. the world is messy. it needs to be more normalised to reassure or comfort people without relying on saying that their issue will get better or be cured. it does suck to be this ill, but it also sucks to be made out to be a lazy pessimist, just because I have the audacity to not play along. and as for the trigger list, I don't like providing people with an easily accessed list of ways to hurt my feelings or harm me - upsetting me is supposed to be challenging, and thus rewarding. if you want a cheat sheet then you're out of luck, I'm afraid.

bonus #2: "FAQ stands for frequently asked questions, it doesn't need that s at the end!"

yeah, I know, I just enjoy chaos and disarray.

bonus #3 (edit): "what are your disabilities and how exactly are they incurable and/or deadly?"

again, I don't tell the internet everything about me, especially when it poses a risk, especially not as an easily accessible list for you to refer back to whenever you feel inclined to hurt my feelings. that is understandably a sore subject. (edit: that includes physical health issues btw.)

bonus #4 (edit): "so we shouldn't be critical?"

if it wasn't clear from my answer about politics or my post in general, you can have opinions about things, and you can voice that. it's just not realistic to exist at extremes: to think that you alone should dictate what exists in fiction, or to think that people shouldn't be expressing disdain or criticism of any calibur. say how you feel about things, that's fine, but it's also fine if people find that they don't value your input. plus we're all flawed, we can all be hypocritical from time to time, we all get bitchy, and we all make mistakes, or even knowingly fuck things up. that's important to keep in mind, whether we're talking about the one being criticised or the one doing the criticising - poor choices of words, imperfect tone, or contradictory ideas are inevitably going to happen occasionally.

congrats on reaching the end! if you have, at any point, said one of these to me, you owe a hug to your nearest loved one (once it's safe).

edit: might add more links/bonus points in the future when I think of things, but it's late now. (sorry for links where prior notes in the thread have my old url, that may get a tad confusing; also, not all links are my blog or my op, since it is to illustrate points/vibes, not to self-promo.)

[rockofeye]

Out of the depths.

It is somehow appropriate that a re-emergence and re-alignment comes with the beginning of the month of May. May is a big month for vodouizan; we celebrate Kouzen and all his family this month and, for people from Jacmel, it is a month devoted to celebrating Jacmel's heritage, which is tied closely to Kouzen. It is said Jacmel is where Kouzen was from before he went to more rural areas; it's not a coincidence that fet Jacmel and fet St Jacques e St Philippe (the patrons of Jacmel) are celebrated on the same days as fet Kouzen (May 1 and May 2).

I've been thinking about Kouzen a lot lately. It's been a difficult year in a lot of ways, but not a bad year. COVID has really permanently changed how things in my professional field work, and with the help of Kouzen and a few of my other lwa, I managed to leverage that into a position using all my professional strengths with the org that has been my target for employment for years. Landing that has not only been life-changing and future-solidifying, but really reinforces that I know what I know and that I am an expert at what I do.

That's a lesson that comes from Kouzen, and it's one that I struggle to learn and remember in my life. Kouzen shows me balance: he is the expert worker in his field (literal and figurative), but you might never know that from how he does his work. Underestimate him and you'll find out, but how he carries himself keeps his mastery of work and growth and agriculture from being the first thing that you see.

I'm pretty okay with that part, but that's the part I get tripped up about. I don't find anything fulfilling professionally or personally about illustrating what I know,, but there is a difference between going about your business and actively hiding from those moments where you can insert who you are and what you know.

I'm a hider. It might sound kind of funny coming from someone who has been writing a blog in the internet for close to a decade, but it's true: I am actually pretty shy and private and being the center of attention--professional or personal--is kind of horrifying to me. I've reached the point in my life where I don't feel I have a lot to prove because I know what I know, but in many ways that's just not possible for me. I don't work in a field where I can just close my office door and have it all be fine, and the lwa have made clear time after time that I cannot just ride off into Ginen with them and live a private life.

This has something that is always a struggle for me because I am introverted and like my alone space and time. It comes back to the good ol' lessons the lwa want me to learn over and over: balance and vulnerability. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes I react like a cat thrown into a bathtub full of water. The lwa win some, I lose some.

I had to get my ass in gear with the notions of balance and putting myself out there and being vulnerable in knowing my worth and demanding (politely) that it be recognized when I found myself completely dissatisfied with my job(s). I was working two jobs (houngans and manbos know about that hustle...) and making good money, but I was ready to work one job and free up time for spiritual work and projects.

I took a chance and applied for a job that was juuuuust within my experience. It was definitely bigger than what I was doing and while it was within my experience level, I honestly wasn't perfectly qualified....but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so I buffed up the resume, sent it off, and sat with my lwa about it. I told them that if this was where I was supposed to go next, I knew they would clear the way.

I didn't get it.

I made it through two rounds of interviews, but ultimately there was an incumbent with 10 more years of experience than I have, and that's almost always a losing equation. I was okay with it because I still had work and at the end of the day, I don't have to love my job to cash the paychecks.

BUT....the lwa had another plan. The team of interviewers liked me, and so I got headhunted for a position that was very, very in line with my professional experience and goals. I spoke with them several times about it and they made me an offer....and it was so low I almost rejected the offer outright.

I was both angry and scared at the same time; angry because the salary offer was ridiculously offensive based on my career history and scared because I have never been in a position to turn down a job offer or, honestly, negotiate.

This time was the first time in my life that I was planning to leave a job because I wanted to. I grew up in a upper working class home and as an adult have spent too much time jobless and underemployed to discount steady work and a regular paycheck. It was scary as hell to be staring down the possibility of kicking the steady paycheck to the side in favor of taking a step into the unknown.

When I got the offer letter, I sat down with the lwa and literally cried because I was so burned out with my other job that it was affecting my performance, but here I was getting a bullshit offer for a hugely involved job. It felt like a loss if I took it and affirmed that both my experience and what they were asking of me was only worth what they were offering. It felt like a loss if I didn't take it, because those opportunities do not come alone like that very often.

It was such a moment of unique despair. Like, I was not hurt or anything tragic but that feeling like I was painted into a corner and that the choices in front of me would leave me at a loss was HUGE and real. For me, when I feel like that it's hard for me to turn on the part if my brain that's analytical. I just need to sit in my misery for a minute (or more) until I get it together enough to figure out what to do.

That is where the blessing of Kouzen (and really all the lwa) came in. He told me to go back to the table, creat another option, and ask for my worth. Like, not swing my proverbial dick and be an asshole, but go be vulnerable and say that the offer was disappointing and that I expected more. So weird because it makes so much sense, right? And yet there I was totally sold that I was either going to be worked like a mule for less money than I was making already, or I was going to remain in The Bad Place until something else came along.

So I did. Even if I felt pessimistic about it (I did) and thought they would say no (convinced of it), I did what I was told because at the end of the day I agreed to sèvis lwa because I believe in the vision the lwa have for me. Some days I say that through gritted teeth, but that's my guiding principle and they have never let me down.

I sent in my counteroffer and waited for the 'we're sorry, but..' email. It was fucking scary. My agency is a behemoth in my field and has been around forever, so pushing back felt a little bit like David versus Goliath, and I didn't have the benefit of a sling and a rock.

It took two days but they got their offer almost to what I asked for, so I took it and it was a huge relief. I am sure that somewhere in the background Kouzen maybe did a quiet fist pump of 'Alex learned a thing' before going back to his work.

In all seriousness, that's a lesson I have struggled so hard with and it was a moment where I had to put it all into practice and rely on what the lwa have taught me as being an ultimate truth. Knowing my worth is not enough; I have to be able to communicate that in a way that both opens doors and doesn't get me used as a doormat. Not doing that seems like it would be almost offensive to Kouzen because, at least in this case, it would be essentially leaving money on the table and wasting it. My Kouzen is very rational about money, but the idea of not trying to set up my financial future makes his eyes bug out and would probably result in Having To Have A Conversation, which I avoid at all costs. Nothing like the lwa reminding you not to fuck up your own blessings.

Getting settled into this particular blessing has been what has been occupying my time the most these days. I came back from Haiti and went right into this job. I have finally clawed my way into administration and, in a very Kouzen twist, am responsible for managing several million dollars worth of grants and spending them both quickly and wisely. I work closely with the person in the position I originally interviewed for and am really happy I didn't get that job, as I am able much better fit where I am.

What else? In late January, I turned in a final draft of a chapter I was tapped to write for a book detailing the experiences of people who are converts to African Traditional and Diasporic religions. I'm excited to see the book when it comes out; I was the only writer on Haitian Vodou, and so it is chock full of other experiences from people from all different places who converted at some point in their life to a huge variety of African and African Descended religions and cultural practices. It's a project that has been in the works for several years, and it was interesting to see personal growth during my involvement in it and while tracking and detailing my journey from a fairly conservative Protestant upbringing to where I am now as a sèvitè lwa.

My living situation has changed up in the middle of this and I am once again at a point in my life where I have a dedicated space for my lwa. Living in one of the most expensive cities in the US has meant roommates and keeping my lwa in a closet in my room (my most recent roommate lovingly referred to them as the Closet People), but the lwa managed to swing it so I have a room dedicated to my spirits.

I have longing for that for so long...it's been years since that was a reality, and now it's finally a thing again. I always have the room for my lwa as my studio space too, since they are a creative force behind a lot of it, and it make my heart so full again to have room to spread out. It's such a gift for me. No more sitting down to pray and having my roommate start to have sex with their partner on the other side of the wall....I cannot tell you how many times that has happened.

Recently I listened to my mother tell some folks how to make tchaka/Kouzen's favorite meal. The regleman/ritual food is one of the most important parts of both ceremony and personal relationships with the lwa, and Kouzen reminded me that it had been quite awhile since I made him tchaka and boy his stomach would feel so much better with some tchaka in it and I already had a lot of the ingredients and wouldn't it be delicious to make some doumbrey for the tchaka too?

...so I went shopping for what I would need for tchaka for my beloved Kouzen because I have clearly neglected his stomach for too long. Living in a city with a huge Haitian population is great because the Haitian grocery store I went to had joumou/Haitian pumpkin, lalo sèk/dried jute leaves, tritri/tiny dried shrimp, djondjon/Haitian black mushrooms, fresh kowosol/soursop(!!!!!), and fresh lam veritab/breadfruit(!!!!!!!!!!).

It is so rare to find fresh kowosol and lam up here in New England because it def doesn't grow here and it doesn't last well when it's shipped....but it looked great today. The kowosol is going to be for me...ji kowosol ak lèt is a favorite, ESPECIALLY with a little Barbancourt poured in...and Kouzen will either get some tomtom or at least boiled lam veritab with his tchaka. Also have the makings of some bonbon siwo, so this husband is gonna eat GOOD. He deserves it.

And then...? Our live-on-Zoom socially distanced fet Kouzen will be sometime late in May. Making our fets available for folks to 'attend' at a distance has been surprisingly cool. I was not thrilled about the idea because of my personal hangups (I hate being on camera) but it's been really wonderful and has been a way for people who can't get to the temple to be able to share energy and get a taste of what a real Haitian fet is like. COVID isn't going away anytime soon, so we'll probably keep doing our fetes this way for awhile.

And...Haitian Summer is coming. I could write another whole post on what's going on down in Haiti, but I am very much looking forward to our kanzo and fet cycle this summer. My very favorite ceremonies are part of kanzo, and I love the opportunity to see the lwa in their home in the temple. I've been so lucky to be able to travel safely to Haiti several times during this mess, and it has fed my soul. It's safer for me and many of my family members now that we are vaccinated, so one less thing to worry about.

With Kouzen's month and the season of spring, I hope for growth in new directions for each of you, complete with all the blessings that Kouzen can bring: fertility and fecundity, inspiration, energy, commitment, rootedness, solid partnerships, and wise investments in self, community, relationships, and business ventures. May the fresh breeze bring you health with every breath and wealth with every exhale.

[grapefrutjuce]

Is it just me or is Dani looking more shiny and clean than usual in the rooftop clip haha

I have many mixed feelings on this story line. I’m an Arab Muslim but I’ve lived almost my entire life in the US, and I’m not very knowledgeable on the more religious accuracy aspects. Besides that, I’m just not sure what the takeaway of this relationship is supposed to be.

Long meaningless rambling under the cut.

I’ve only seen the OG SKAM before this, so I can only compare to that version of Yousana. But my impression was that Yousef and Sana were very strong on a few fronts - cultural context, history, and shared values. The conflict was over religion as a practice or moral philosophy. Things conclude on a fairly positive open ended note, despite this.

So how does that compare to Damira? Dani doesn’t have a shared cultural context with Amira, at least when it comes to her religion and background. Not much evidence he is actively trying to remedy some of his ignorance. Or at least, evidence that he is eager to do so.

He does have an established friendship and history with her, but I feel the show wants us to accept that as fact rather than show us many meaningful examples. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt there, though.

To be honest, I’m not sure at all if Dani and Amira have many shared values. Yousef made a point of taking a hit for Sana when it came to her parents suspecting drinking. So far, I don’t think Dani has taken any hits on Amira’s behalf, and that’s not for lack of opportunity. She continues to shoulder much of the burden.

Additionally, I really don’t jive with the concept of befriending people who treat others badly. It’s not even like most of his friends were respectful and polite, it’s that most of them were not. What does that say about Dani? That his concern is chiefly with how his friends treat him rather than how they treat others? What exactly does he value from these friendships? And as many people have pointed out, his joke about the kid still hasn’t been properly addressed. Does that mean we shouldn’t perceive this as a possible mismatch of his and Amira’s values?

Finally, the conflict aspect is different this time around. This is probably the only realm I think could be an interesting ‘benefit’ of choosing the Dani route for Yousef. In the OG, Yousef seems to have had his experiences with organized religion and definitively chosen to discontinue participation. For Dani, he has also had his own experiences with organized religion, but perhaps hasn’t felt any particular need to really commit one way or another. In fact, it seems that Amira’s own conviction in her faith is part of his attraction to her (note: they need to be very careful with this). Maybe he has found some sort of kinship with her on some level, in a way that encourages him to think about things differently.

So, where Yousef made a conscious decision to leave religion, here is a chance for Dani to make a conscious decision to join it. His relative ambiguity allows Amira to explicitly say that conversion would eventually be on the table, if they pursued a relationship. Why not explore this route, then? Not converting solely for Amira’s sake, but being inspired by her to start that kind of spiritual introspection within himself. I wish the dialogue would hint that maybe the reason Dani began to consider Amira in this light was because these were things that he did think about, but couldn’t share with other people he knew.

Some might say that this isn’t realistic. Why not? And why is Amira’s relationship confined to strict 'realism’? How many people in real life actually marry their high school sweetheart? Yet there are no problems with accepting other ships as 'endgame’ for all intents and purposes (within the show canon). I don’t think it’s fair that those relationships are portrayed as strong or developed enough to go the distance (these are still just a bunch of teens) but a Sana relationship is too challenging or 'mature’ to maintain.

If a lot of these ships can be fanfic-y or wish-fulfillment flavored, why not give Amira a relationship that isn’t painted as DOA (this is of course, notwithstanding the giant missed opportunity w/Kasim, but I’m not even going to go there)? Yes, Amira wants different things from a relationship than other characters. And perhaps she is satisfied being single. My issue is giving her the possibility of a loving relationship that respects her boundaries only to take it away from her, like she was asking too much. I know 21 year old white guys like Dani will have difficulties with this different style of relationship. But if it ends badly, to me it will almost read as a cautionary tale. If it’s so obviously an exercise in futility, why should I be invested at all?

I want the show to say that Dani believes Amira is absolutely worth it, not 'eh I was celibate for a few weeks and I’m not feeling it.’ That would also make both Dani and Amira look incredibly naive, if both acknowledge that they can only interact physically after marriage, yet still start dating now (doubt they plan to marry any time soon). So does the show mean to punish Amira for this naivety? I would much rather they provide a hopeful resolution, even if people say it’s 'unrealistic.’ 

Obviously pursuit of a relationship shouldn’t be the sole motivating factor of a major lifestyle or behavioral shift. But careful framing of Dani’s decision making and helpful insights into his mindset could avoid this. I know it would be perfectly fair for him to conclude he isn’t ready to commit to anything serious at this stage in his life. But…being that this IS a fictional story written by real people (with their own biases and preconceptions), there is a message that could be interpreted there…that Amira is, in fact, not worth the effort.

I’m also not sure what Dani’s expression meant when he was watching Amira take a drink from the bottle. I think it was a look of realization, but I’m not convinced that was necessarily realization of love or respect or something like that. I know it’s supposed to basically mirror the OG breaking fast scene, but the circumstances are different enough that I can’t assume Dani feels like OG Yousef did. Often times I get the vibe that Dani doth protest too much when he reassures Amira.

True, the season is only half over so my opinion could change. It’s just that, I don’t doubt that Dani and Amira have chemistry, enjoy each other’s company, and are very comfortable with each other. But I doubt the… substance? Content? Of Dani’s feelings for Amira. And I don’t even know if that’s intentional, or me being overly suspicious of the writing or what.

For me to think there is potential for real love at some point, I would need to feel that these two people very much want to protect each other and look out for each other’s well being. For Dani to merely accept or even admire Amira’s faith isn’t enough to sustain anything. It’s not just about being content in your own bubble, but about being partners and reinforcing that bond outside of it. I’m just trying to contextualize Dani’s approach to and motivations for this relationship, and at the same time validate Amira’s own wishes for herself and ensure that Dani is capable of fulfilling those needs.

I really like Damira. I am *really, really* rooting for them to work. I think they have a lot of untapped potential and a great tender affection for one another. That’s what makes me nervous that the show will pull out the rug from under me.